Uncivil Union
by ToaArcan
Summary: Sonic and Sally lead the assault on the new Death Egg, but oversight on the princess' part lands her in a brand new roboticizer. Now the chief tactical officer of the Eggman Empire, Mecha Sally begins working to ensure her friends share the same fate as her. Forced to fight the ones they love, Sonic and his remaining allies are forced to resort to desperate measures...
1. Prologue: Heroes

Well hello, and welcome to the fifth collaboration between myself and Therix (DA page can be found here: )

This is the second installment in the Uncivil Trilogy. While Fiona's life has become a dead-end of depressed subservience, things on Mobius are exploding.

* * *

"Detection's looking good guys. We're still off the radar and I'm not picking up any patrols coming after us!" Shouting above the wind blasting around them, Tails found his attention divided between the Death Egg, a giant sphere of metal hanging in the air above Mobius, and the many little displays mounted in the cockpit of the Tornado. The little craft had been taking to the skies for a few years now and honestly given the option there were better stealth craft available, but they really didn't have the option. The countdown had begun and they either went with what they had, or found themselves on the receiving end of whatever weapon the station was designed to house.

Still, it wasn't the worst thing to have. Its slimmer frame and design gave it a pretty small radar image without advanced equipment and despite its age relative to other craft, the fox had kept it maintained in his spare time and it still functioned undeniably well.  
"Nicole, any way in?" Sonic and Sally nestled in the seat behind him, the squirrel lady held in by the hedgehog's tight grip. If it were any other pair, it would have been awkward, but as it stood she barely noticed, focussed on the pad pressed between her fingers. They'd needed more time, more time to get a better aircraft, a larger team, and solid plan. Instead, they were running in on fumes, good guesses, and the AI lynx's first ever body. Not good.

"I've scanned the outer surface, and there's no way in other than the main hangar bay, and obviously that's not going to be an option." Nicole's voice crackled through the speaker.  
"Looks like we have to make our own way in, then." Sonic spoke up.  
"Sonic, none of us have a weapon that can penetrate it, unless you think it's a good idea to try using the synth-Emeralds to transform." Sally sighed.  
"Actually..." Tails grinned. "I might have taken the liberty of upscaling Rotor's schematics for Bunnie's railgun and mounting it on the Tornado, but I'll need to put the plane into Battle Mode to use it, or I might damage the prop."

"And that'll light us up like a firework on their radar." The lynx almost sighed without lungs. "They'll be all over us!"  
"Then we get creative." A thumb on a button and he opened the channel to the rest of the team, two relatively small but just as loud objects, hurtling through the air around them. "We need to go loud and there are patrols everywhere. You guys alright to dance with some scouts?"  
 _"_ _What have you got in mind?"_ Rotor's voice came back minus the blast of wind from within an insulated battlesuit, an advanced combat machine he kept on standby for situations like this.

"Going to need to blast a hole in the outer shell, but I'll need time to change, deploy the gun, fire and check the shot. About twenty seconds all told." Everything was running on the barest minimum of time here, down to milliseconds. Between political instability generated between Ixis Naugus and the Acorn crown, Robotnik's continued harrying of Mobian society and Fiona's flight to Moebius, the Freedom Fighters had been losing ground for a while now. It had only been a matter of time before things came to a head, and right now the only mercy, the smallest of them, was that Robotnik was the only one making a move at the moment.

 _"We can handle that, Sugah."_ Bunnie shouted back, being decidely less-insulated than Rotor. "We'll go and make some noise, get 'em off yer back. If ya need closer cover, just holler."  
"Roger. Good luck, guys."  
 _"Same to you, Tails."_

The line died, as both of the smaller fliers turned, wheeling away from the Tornado's wings. Up here, this high, the massive station looked positively monolithic despite their distance from it. They could count themselves fortunate that the construction was so massive. It necessitated massive networks of service and maintenance tunnels throughout the entire dermal layer of armour, giving them a choice of weak spots when using a weapon this precise. On top of that its sheer bulk and electrical presence meant that most of its monitoring equipment was less effective, somewhat disrupted by the behemoth they were mounted to.

Putting things simply, if they shot at it with a weapon with such precision and power as the railgun, an energy-driver mounted beneath the main body, then they would likely make some sort of entrance, and it would take a little while to be detected properly into the bargain.  
"Nicole, any good locations for me?"  
The AI took a moment, then responded. "Artillery battery, eleven o'clock. Not getting any obvious power usage, so just above it. There has to be some loading room there."  
"That should do nicely."  
"Putting it up on your HUD now."  
"Target acquired..." But they still had time left. Fire too early and they'd have drones everywhere. Too late, and they'd become a wet mark on the side of their foe's station.

Idly he thumbed the trigger controls, everything concerned with the manoeuvrability and dogfighting capacity of his vehicle built into the joystick. He even engaged a countdown on a spare display, though he didn't need it; calculations like this weren't the most precise of sciences, but it was a little more reassuring having it in front of him. Besides, it meant a timer free of distraction.  
Three.  
Two.  
One.  
Bingo.

A depressed stud and a twist of the throttle and the Tornado shook, internal mechanisms grinding through into familiar motion. Struts retracted and the wings split, the prop coming to a sharp halt, folding and retracing into the nose-cone. For a few moments, deprived of its main lift and thrust, they were in freefall. But it wasn't done yet.  
The nose split once again alongside a port at the rear of the plane, the entire construction splitting down the midsection and elevating it a few crucial inches. Within curved plates extended and locked together and then they surged forward once again, the concealed jet engine roaring into life, pre-charged. Ten seconds done.

It was a combat mode. He didn't even need to deploy the railgun, a hatch dropping open on the craft's belly and the heavy coaxial weapon dropped and extended to full length, the first charge humming in the firing chamber as around them radars pinged and whined. They'd noticed, tearing away from established routes and circling down before him. The blurs of his comrades intercepted them early and a bright ripple of explosions and shrapnel split the space as they opened up with their own equipment and brute force.

Five seconds, and he fired. With no solid projectile to expel it was almost instant and came with no recoil, a thin dot of light easily outpacing them, becoming a glint against the dangerously close outer shell, and then an explosion. A vibrant storm of blue energy it tore past metal and cabling above a bulbous old gun placement, and through the cloud of dust the fox glimpsed open space. That was all they needed.  
"Jump!"

Sonic unbuckled himself and Sally, carefully picked her up, and hurled himself from the plane, triggering a boost in mid-air, driving the pair of them towards the opening. They sailed in through the rent and away from the howling winds, the hedgehog pivoting to align himself properly with the floor. His feet touched the ground and suddenly he was in control again, his natural abilities kicking in and killing their momentum with the squirrel's head cradled in his arms. Didn't want to land just for whiplash to get her.  
He stopped, halting feet from the wall and spun, just in time to watch as Tails dropped away, a similar trick having been performed by the ace pilot, but with differing results without the benefit of a floor. He'd be fine.

"You alright, Sal?" Sonic asked, setting the squirrel down gently. Patting herself down, to make sure she hadn't lost anything in the jump, she nodded, even as she pressed a finger to her earbud.  
"Bunnie, Rotor, we're in. You're all clear to join us."  
 _"Roger that, Sally-Gal."  
"We'll be there in a second."_  
"Tails, stay below the Death Egg, up close to it. You'll be able to shoot anything that comes out of the hangar before they can turn around and dive to meet you."  
 _"Okay, Aunt Sally."_

"Hey Sal, I checked the room over. Nowhere for you to plug Nicole in, but there are security cameras, so the Lord of Lard probably knows we're here." Sonic piped up.  
"I'd hazard a guess that blasting a hole in the side of his battle station might've clued him in."  
"With the sheer size of the place it probably took a bit to reach him though." The AI chirped a little more positively. "Most of the stuff is wired, so lots of minor magnetic interference, and a relatively long time travelling from A to B."  
"But he still knows we're here, right?"  
"If he doesn't, he will in a few moments."

The klaxons began to wail, automatic responses, as their colleagues joined them, two armoured bodies drifting in out of the atmosphere and into a quieter environment. The Rabbit's fur where it was still organic was matted and tussled by the air, but you couldn't even see Rotor. Full-body armour added a fair whack of height to him, enough to make one think super soldier rather than scientist.

Sonic and Sally headed over the door, covering the two newcomers as they steadied themselves. It wouldn't be long before robots began to arrive, if only to extinguish the fire. Still, now they were here phase two would be more simple. Bunnie and Rotor would again provide a distraction, while Sally found somewhere to plug Nicole in and download the schematics. Then, Sonic could head to detain Eggman and destroy whatever overcomplicated mech the madman had brought with him this time, while she located the core and shut it down.

In reality they were leaving far too much to chance going with such a thin team, but hey, it was what they had. With any luck between the three of them, Sonic and the other two could make enough noise to let Sally and Nicole through undetected. The reality was that the squirrel and AI were the key to the plan; everyone else just had to improvise if they could, and maybe Tails would find something breakable down there.  
"Sal, let us get going first, yeah?" Sonic's thinking was simple – make himself a target and they'd forget to notice her.

"Stagger it. Bunnie and Rotor go in first and start the distraction. Then you go for Eggman. You don't get held up as much that way, and we can cover each other's backs a while longer. I don't want to sound selfish, but I'd rather I wasn't left alone for very long on this thing."  
"Well, let's get it going then." With the protective cases folding back over his thruster systems Rotor took the lead, eyeing the blast door, the defensive cover having slammed down to limit the damage. Just an environmental seal, nothing more. It'd buckle fairly easy. Getting up close he squatted, forcing the suit's fingers through the more pliable rubber border, bracing and engaging the heavy-lifting hydraulics.

The gate squeal the most, its own pistols objecting to violent force as he straightened, slowly, grinding it against whatever was trying to keep it closed until, with a rattling clang, something important broke, and the resistance dropped away. Above head height he let go, rather satisfied with the field test, leaving the mangled mechanisms to hold the thing up.

"Okay, it couldn't do that before."  
"New servos." The walrus grinned behind the helmet. "In any case, we'll see you two later. Good luck."  
"Thank you." Sally nodded, as both of her friends' engines warmed up again, blasting them down the corridor. They'd find something breakable, between them. "Sonic?"  
"Yeah?" She leant across, delivering a quick peck on the cheek, a quick moment of encouragement. "Go get 'em."

"Sal, you're a real gem. Ya know I don't need luck." He laughed, grinning that same cocksure grin he always wore before a fight. It took a hell of a lot to really phase the blue blur, but it was almost a calling card to how bad things really were. He kept going, there was always a shot.

"Well, best to stack the odds in your favour." She prodded his chest, returning the grin. "Now get going."  
"Got it." He flicked a two-fingered salute at her, before taking off at a light jog, so as to not get too far in before Bunnie and Rotor could do their part. Sally watched after him, then pressed her earbud again.  
"Guys, I'm moving to another room. Even with the distraction, the hole's going to be a magnet for them." She announced, slipping quietly through the ruined door, scanning the corridor for a side-room.

She moved slowly, keeping to the wall with half an eye on the ceiling and searching for anything that might trigger another alert. The rest of the group might have been setting off every warning they could find on their way, but the organic presence on the base was never more than a handful, and Robotnik kept all of them close to the chest. If she got rumbled, she'd be as loud on the systems as Sonic was.  
"Hey Nicole, you've been running simulations, right? What are our options for taking this thing out?"

"Setting a controlled crash-course would be ideal, though accessing the bridge is not really viable, and doing so would potentially take too long. Overloading the core is also an option, but the destruction would leave wreckage raining down on anything below, and the blast itself may be too much for the city shield." The AI responded. "I have two viable options: The first is to do enough damage, by ruining computers and whatever main weapon he has pointed at the city, that he deems the mission he is on impossible, and flees. With this done, we can make a more coordinated assault and enact one of the former two solutions. The second is to apprehend or terminate the upper echelons of the staff. By taking out Eggman himself, and Snively and Lien-Da, we can effectively end the war itself. With that done, the Death Egg can stay where it is until we find a safe way to destroy it."

Well, the others had their first idea covered. Sonic didn't pay much mind to what he hit when Robotnik was involved, and he would cause a respectable amount of collateral damage even without trying. Rotor and Bunnie on the other hand…well, that was their job here. Destroy what they could and keep the defensive forces from homing in on Sally. That left taking out the command groups as their best option. "Where are Snively and Lien-Da right now?"  
"I'm guessing we're going with option B then. I can't just lock in on them without access to the station's systems, but they'll be somewhere in the control sphere. There are a few secondary command rooms to handle individual tasks in case the main one goes down."

"Think you could shut the weapon down from there?"  
"Just plug me in and I can probably do something." So if Nicole could get herself a physical connection, they had a shot. Snively likely wouldn't pose much of a threat on his own, so all she would need to do would be take care of Lien-Da. "We can get there through one of the secondary elevators – I'll give you directions."  
"Right."

Sally quietly ducked out of her second hiding place, scanning the corridor for unwanted company. Seeing nothing that posed an obvious threat, she made her move, keeping herself as silent as possible. Despite their high rank, neither Snively nor Lien-Da would be on the bridge during an assault- both were far too eager to dispatch the mad doctor, and as such, he tended to order them to be kept away from primary controls while he himself was not present.

"Take a left at the end. Then across the intersection, and the second right."  
The squirrel moved cautiously, stopping at every turn or alcove and checking her surroundings before moving on; robots could come from absolutely anywhere on this station. Empty. Every corner and turn-off, empty, and she pulled up short before the final turn, perplexed. Either Sonic and the others were doing their job extremely well, or something was out of place. "Shouldn't there be a repair team right about now?"  
"Maybe a small hole in the outer shell isn't high on their priorities, or they're busy somewhere else. Either way, they won't be down our path. You wouldn't keep repair units in the command bay."

"You're right, I wouldn't, but competent station design isn't something I'd expect from Eggman. You saw how poorly-defended this thing was from the outside. He's got such an obsession with his warped 'game' with Sonic that he likely designed this place more as a maze to test him than as an actual, tactically viable fortress. Who knows what bizarre decisions he's made just to keep important things away from Sonic." Sally mused.  
"Sally, testing Sonic with maintenance robots is about as effective as hoping Tails would fail an Elementary school test."

They both laughed at the sentiment, but the point was taken nonetheless. The bizarre, egotistical dictator absolutely loved subjecting Sonic to increasingly eccentric obstacles and traps, but they were always something he expected the hedgehog would actually find a challenge. A box on wheels with a welding torch probably didn't fit into that category.  
Her words proved true regardless, coming to a signature set of sliding elevator doors with little further ado, a password access panel barring access on a closed network. A quick connection and the AI breezed through the firewall, and they were stepping in momentarily.

"Alright, going up." The lift shunted, racing upwards faster than the squirrel had expected. "I also took the time to cut out any response to the call buttons on other floors."  
"Thank you."  
"We should be there in a few seconds." The elevator shrieked upwards along its rails, towards the command rooms. In reality such a sensitive location should have been harder to access, but most didn't have access to Nicole.

The metal box slammed to a halt against the edge of its operational limits, inertial dampers surrounding the case cancelling any momentum that might have been conserved within. It was the only safe way to function at these speeds without pasting an organic occupant, not that there were many to worry about.  
The door slid open without any fanfare, hissing back to allow its passengers out into a small cube of a room, one wall plastered with screens and consoles, the other with thick black cables.

"This seems too small..."  
"Most of these appear to be devoted to smaller systems. As an aside, we're far enough away from the others that we might actually run into assailants now, so watch your motion trackers. "  
"Of course." The squirrel nodded. "Can you get the door open wirelessly, or is it secure enough here to require a hardline?"

"Every system here is probably going to be isolated from all the rest. We'll have to find the controls for the main gun, otherwise I'll have to try and loop back through another system and that could take time we don't have." She'd been running simulations in her head since they'd deployed. Already a vanguard program was prepared, ready to inject in case things went wrong. Worst case scenario she could send a killer program to follow it, but it'd be like trying to climb a waterfall.  
"Alright, alright." She kept them moving forward, plugging the AI into the door's keypad to do her thing with one eye on the display fitted to her forearm. Motion trackers…only reliable system for situational awareness in a place with so much going on technically.

"How thick is the security?"  
"Not particularly. Just a simple password." Nicole's voice echoed back. "I'm inputting all possible codes." Normally just going with a trial-and-error like that would send an error code back and lock itself down, but she was on top of that. Every time one went out, it just ran straight into her, and didn't get much further. "You've got to be joking." She blinked internally.  
"Something wrong?"  
"Well…no. Someone's defaulted all the passwords back to a basic top to bottom sequence. I was expecting some awful egg-based pun, but nothing. The guys must have broken something important."  
"Or the hundreds of traitors he encourages are trying to make some sort of move and changing them to benefit themselves..."  
"Also a possibility. Nevertheless, door's open."

Sally unplugged Nicole, clipping the AI's unit back onto her boot. Stepping quickly and quietly towards the door, she glanced at the tracker on her wrist. Still no movement, but that didn't mean anything. It could mean that death was standing still. Still, had to keep moving.  
Pressing the keypad a final time lifted the heavy shutter, and this time it looked like she was in the right place. Massive compared to the pokey cupboard of a room she was leaving, and no possible doubt that these were the main gun controls.  
Well, it was practically plastered across every surface.

Big warning signs, giant observation screens, even a courtesy roboticization chamber installed halfway into the wall. A sort of dome of operations, what little of the room wasn't panels of controls was taken up by banks of wiring and displays reading off constant reams of information too fast to decipher. They had to be in the right place – Robotnik's ego wouldn't allow for anything less.

Scanning every corner of the chamber for occupants lying in wait for her, Sally crossed to the largest terminal, and plugged Nicole into it.

"Alright, let's get to work."  
"Already hitting the firewall... We know someone has been here before us, so I'm going to be careful... I have the horrible lingering sense that this is a trap..."  
"Doesn't take a genius to figure that…" The squirrel turned slowly, surveying the room once again beyond her initial glances. Rather fittingly, it was too quiet. Even with everyone else off causing trouble, this was far too easy. "So come on, who's hiding?"

She didn't get an answer. Well, not a verbal one, anyway. It came as a faint shudder of disturbed air resonating in the centre of the room, lashing out and coiling round her neck. She caught the briefest glimpse of crimson fur, dreadlocks and dark leather before a shock jolted across her spine and she was torn down and off her feet, shoulder smacking on the ground with stars popping in her eyes.  
"So…it's you." Lien-Da. Of course, hiding here of all places. An Echidna femme fatale and she'd chosen here to rut of all places. Struggling with agitated limbs Sally felt the semi-prehensile whip uncoil from her neck, the cruel lady letting her cloak disintegrate and beginning to pace round her.

"You know, this is really quite precious. I mean honestly, using the blue guy as a distraction? Letting other people take the fall?" The red lady leered, grinning down at her prey. "Creeping around and sticking a knife in where it hurts most? A woman after my own heart – I might even start to cry. Oh, but what's this?" And like a cat, she found something else. Her eyes drifted from the squirrel on the floor, certain she was not a threat, coming to rest on the handheld fitted between racks of buttons on the console, and her face lit up. "And friends!"

"Damnit…" Sally had been through worse, psychologically and mentally, but it was still a crippling strike. Bristling with enhancement and cybernetics, she wasn't sure if Lien-Da was more organic or mechanism at this point, but she knew what she was capable of. Internal heads-up display, wired reflexes and boosted strength, and powered whips integrated into her arms to boot. Then she realised something. That attack had meant to knock her out, so why hadn't it?

Through blurred vision she saw the Echidna pluck the palmtop from the panel, poking at the screen and the wires attached. As she stood, shakily, trying to shiver off the after-effects of the attack she saw the screen go blank, as her AI friend locked down access to avoid complicating matters, and it sank in.  
Grounding. Of course – when the shock had gone off she'd grasped, flailed, grabbed the console, and the shock had been dissipated, leaving little more than a lingering throb from the passing current. Sure, it hurt, but it left her far from defenceless, and that was her advantage.

She almost fell forward into a run, feet pounding against the ground as she broke forward against the distracted lady. Lien-Da saw her coming and twisted, dropping the handheld and throwing a backhand intended to crush her windpipe. The heavy strike met air as Sally's knees bucked in and the squirrel herself tilted backwards, sliding neatly under the strike. With her own momentum and one hand free she gripped the Echidna's face at the jaw and powered forward, thrusting her back and smashing her face into the console, her own momentum arrested and balance regained in the process.

Her grip relaxed and her hand slipped back, only a fraction of an inch as her opponent still reeled from the surprise attack and then fastened tight once again around the jaw itself, tearing back and launching Lien-Da back away from her and the console, rolling to a scraping, shaking halt back to where she'd started, right in the centre of the room. A few moments of silence and the Echidna dragged herself back to standing, looking visibly shaken and shocked. Wired reflexes were fast – much faster than a regular Mobian could counter, but that didn't count for anything if you knew your attacks in advance.

Not normally given to violence, but recognising the need to finish this quickly, the squirrel was already upon her, bringing the reinforced heel of her boot down towards her skull. Eyes widening for a moment, she caught her ankle, twisting it sharply. Thrown completely off balance, the squirrel fell, colliding with her assailant as she landed. Hands gripped the back of her vest and the world shifted again, thrown round in an arc, cracking hard against the wall. She'd gotten that first attack in with luck and good timing, but there was no guarantee she could repeat it.

Something powerful slammed into her stomach, forcing the air from her lungs and filling her mouth with the taste of bile. _Definitely not._ Nevertheless she kept going, forcing herself upright, propped against the wall. Unsteadily she blocked a second haymaker, striking out with a foot in response. Lien-Da was faster. Each kick, she stamped down. Each punch she twisted aside and delivered one of her own.

 _Come on... can't get bogged down with attacking... got to regroup._ Feigning a strike from her left, she lashed out with her right instead, staggering the older woman just long enough to slip from her grasp and put a little distance between the two of them. She staggered slightly, reeling from the pain. She swayed backwards, part tactical move and part dizziness, shifting her way towards the console. "Nicole…how's it going?"  
"I'm practically there, just a bit longer!" Firewalls, no problem. Intrusion countermeasures? Could have taken care of them in her sleep. Closing the massive firing chamber and cooling down the goliath of a mechanism? That was taking the time. So many little systems to pick apart.

"You really think that just because this machine is shut off, I'll let you go?" The echidna smirked. "The only reason I didn't take her out with my second whip was because I want her to succeed."  
"I don't follow... Even if you do want Eggman gone, why ruin one of his plans instead of taking it over?"  
"Well, that's easy to understand if you know what the big gun actually is..." She went on, baiting her opponent, taunting her with the knowledge.  
"And that is?"  
"Oh, just the primary firing point of a planetary scale roboticizer."

"Shit…" the revelation in itself was enough to take a step back.  
"Yeah, shit is right." Lien-Da leered. "As ambitious as the doc is, I kinda like a world where everyone is trying to fuck each other over. Makes it easier for me to have my fun. Really not interested in everyone being robots. So go ahead, turn it off. Oh, you don't need to thank me for resetting the passwords for you – this is payment enough." Swinging her arms out to her sides the twin lines of her whips cracked from spur chambers in her forearms, arcs spiking between them and the floor.

World roboticiser…they'd thought he was just planning to wipe out the city. This raised the stakes.

"Sally, it's done."  
"Excellent!" Lien-Da smirked, lashing one whip toward the small computer. Sally dove to intercept, snagging the computer and clipping her back onto her boot. The second whip struck her back, electricity charging through her body. This time, this one time, she didn't hold back, pushing up the charge to the limits a Mobian could withstand. The squirrel went into shock this time, muscles thrashing about of their own accord. Her nervous system ignored her frantic attempts to regain control, numb charge paralysing her movements and leaving her to shiver on the ground as she was reeled in by the Echidna.

Nonchalantly she removed the palmtop from her opponent's boot once again, pocketing the device with a chuckle in her throat. "You really won't want that on where you're going." Grabbing her by the foot she dragged her, still twitching, across the floor towards the pod inset into the wall. "Snivs, got this thing warmed up yet?"

"I do wish you wouldn't call me that..." The diminutive human sighed, as his own cloaking device deactivated. "And yes, it's ready. Deactivating the World Roboticizer gave us an extra reserve of power."  
"Excellent. And the altered programming?"  
"Ready to be installed."  
With a glance down at her charge, the lady lifted her, recalling the whips and throwing her into the roboticization chamber, dragging the door shut behind her and stepping away to watch the process. Roboticization was far from her favourite practise, but hey, she wasn't the one getting chromed.

"Let's get this show on the road. First piece of the puzzle, right partner?"


	2. Chapter 1: Reprogrammed

[Basic OS online. Running test protocol…protocol completed. Stability confirmed.]  
[Booting consciousness…establishing operational parameters…defragmenting corrupt files. Operations completed. Systems nominal.]  
[Establishing prime directives. Confirmed.]  
[Designate secondary objectives? Positive response confirmed. Standing by…]  
As automatic software completed a brief-run down of the system she felt each system come online, from the actuators in her limbs to the optic receives in her eyes, flexing them out of an old habit, carried across through the metamorphosis and somehow missed by the complex security software.

Noting her position she lifted herself to her feet, well aware of what was expected of her. This body was not sufficient to perform the task, and would need modification or at least supplementation. No visible or concealed armaments, no apparent intel suite of note beyond short-range radar. Other than that, limited to basic input for now, it seemed. Nevertheless, Mecha Sally had a job to do; upgrading would come later.  
"Open the chamber. Our current status is compromised and the Freedom Fighters will succeed unless we act now. Is this clear?" She felt the difference in her voice, vibrating through an artificial larynx-speaker that leant a faint buzz to her tone.

"She's talkative." The shorter, red-coloured figure, registering as "Grandmistress" on her HUD, folded her arms, frowning slightly. "I like these things better when they just acknowledge orders and answer questions."

"She's the first of a new breed." The taller one, still designated as "Snively" replied haughtily. "We had to change things in order to work past the immunity the Bem implanted. One of the things I deemed beneficial was a more advanced AI. She is closer to full sentience than any of the previous drones, and that makes her a more effective servant. I'd expect a more pro-active attitude towards achieving goals than regular Mobians if I were you."

"So we can just kick back and let her do her thing? Forget what I said - if it gives me time off it might not be so bad."  
"After today, we'll see. Mecha Sally," he addressed the chromed figure in the container, "your situational assessment?"  
"The Death Egg primary cannon is offline. The station poses no significant threat to continued life on Mobius. Recommended course of action would be to isolate existing Freedom Fighter forces and neutralise or repel them where possible. I lack the necessary armaments to combat Sonic; I will engage Rotor and Bunnie."

"I'm guessing that's the 'proactive thing' going on." Lien-Da sighed to herself as the new Robian turned to leave, happy about the possibility of days off but still chafing at the thought of one of these bolts and britches types having a little too much autonomy. "Snivs, she's got a point. We don't really have much that can handle Sonic."  
"Don't be too concerned." The conniving human smiled, tapping the side of his nose rather knowingly. "It might be worth us going to take a look, but I think my uncle has this one taken care of."  
"And you're sure of this…how?"  
"If you'd been forced to listen to any of his speeches, you'd realise just how much he choreographs his plans for people like you or me."  
"I'll keep that in mind, but what's he got this time that the blue idiot's going to find so hard to stop? He normally walks all over him."  
"Oh, nothing." Snively replied. "But that's how it always is. Sonic fights Robotnik, he wins, but it takes some effort. By the time they are done with their little "Game" as the rotund fool calls it, Sonic will likely be both injured and tired. Meanwhile, our number of tireless Robian slaves will have doubled, and to make things all the sweeter, he will likely refuse to fight them."

"How does capturing the two intruders only increase our number of Robians by two?"  
"Miss Rabbot is already partially roboticized." Snively replied, folding his arms behind his back. "Since we haven't had a legionnaire traitor that Robotnik hasn't detonated immediately, I've been unable to test the effects of the new roboticizer on cyborg parts. It's possible that it will work on them, however, it is also possible that it won't."  
"So test it on the rabbit." Lien-Da sighed impatiently. "It's pretty simple."  
"Not so. If it's unsuccessful, there's a high possibility that the trend of previous roboticizers to overload machines and explode them will be upheld, and Miss Rabbot is far too valuable as a weapon to risk her on that. No, she will have to be legionized until the effects can be ascertained."

"Well, I guess you'd know a bit more about it than me." The echidna lady wasn't all that interested. She understood roughly what happened during the process of roboticization because it was a benefit to be aware, but the specifics and problems associated had no place in her head. As long as Robians followed orders that was all she needed to know about exactly how they worked.  
"Robotnik may require assistance." Mecha Sally paused at the door, looking back at them. "Please support him until further backup can be mobilised."

She left after that, pacing down out into the main elevator. This time there was no resistance, the Death Egg's automated systems detecting the required access codes along with her location request, slamming the doors shut and rocketing down into the bowels of the station. First port of call – find a security terminal and requisition an audit on all defences recently activated, alongside any error reports coming in from damaged or offline systems. Any service summaries listed by maintenance drones would help too. There would be two clear trails of destruction, and all she would have to do would be track the one that was keeping away from the primary systems.

"Ahem, Mecha Sally." Snively's voice echoed behind her, as he followed her out of the room. "You have not been dismissed."  
"According to the Master's programming, I am not required to ask you."  
"But you do have to defer to the Grandmasters." Snively replied. "Given your previous self's penchance for resisting mental control, I want to give your programming a check over, just to make sure she is properly supressed, and you maintain control of your body."

The Robian glanced between the two of them; Snively was not labelled specifically as Grandmaster, but a subtle nod from Lien-Da gave her reason enough to obey, though her algorithms told her it was wasting time to pander to these unnecessary concerns.  
And yet, an order was an order and she shifted away from the elevator, adhering to the instruction to return without cancelling her information scan. Snively would likely object to it running while he performed whatever test he had devised, but she could pause it and sit it in some innocuous subroutine while that was going on. Obediently she drew up in front of him, stopping ramrod straight on standby.

"Hold still," he continued, reaching round to the back of her head and tapping at the base of her lead data cable, where the spine used to be. Reacting to his presence a tiny port slipped open and he plugged a cable in, a complex connector that had no other standard application, here or anywhere else on Mobius, and the screen meant to control the main gun exploded with information.  
"Now this is where it gets good," he grinned wryly at the Mobian, the lady quickly getting bored, ignoring his machinations. Ah well, you couldn't buy interest these days. The program was all there, hidden in plain sight in Robotnik's mainframe, all the trappings ready to be installed save a few personal touches he'd left out to avoid it being picked up.

"Just tell me when it's done." The echidna leaned against a console. Snively sighed, continuing to work through the Robian code. The task was simple on paper - extract the code that his uncle had written, and replace it with theirs. They were similar, identical at a glance, but the differences were enough to turn Mecha Sally from an obstacle to their plans to a potential asset. "Hey, while you're in there, why not delete the Princess' mind. We don't need that anymore."

"We won't need it after the war is won, but until then, Sally Acorn's memories and knowledge, as well as her tactical prowess, will make very useful tools, and there simply isn't the time to dig through her core and isolate those elements. Best leave it all, and clean her out when her services are no longer required for anything beyond slave labour."

"Tch, fine." Lien-Da groaned. "And what do we do with her little digi-pet?"  
"I'm still conjuring with that myself. She certainly won't help her, and there's nothing to roboticize. Still, it may be worth looking into her systems to see if there's anything juicy. Recall, if you will, the Iron Nicole debacle." Computers always ran into flaws, and the Iron Nicole situation had been one of the known worst, but if anything remained from then, even some of the security code, they could extract and use it.

The most likely scenario at least would be that they could exploit some latent bug left in the system to extract information or damage the Freedom Fighter infrastructure. In any case it wouldn't be something they could exploit immediately, but would be worth holding onto for a later date.  
A few final keypresses and the software began its installation, taking it out of his hands and into the few moments it would take. Fortunate that his work was an evolution of his uncle's code, or it could have taken hours.

Mecha Sally's optics blacked out for a second, reactivating with a crimson glow for a second, before turning blue again. She shuddered, her whole body stress-testing itself for a moment before looking up at the two organics balefully. Yes, there was a problem, but it was not what she had been led to believe – the known fault was more ingrained than she had first believed.  
"My initial assessment still stands. The current objective is still correct. I understand the primary objective, but first this current situation must be resolved. Immediately."

* * *

Nearly a kilometre away, Sonic landed roughly, as various chunks of shattered mech collapsed away from the charred Eggmobile. Side-stepping a formerly-arm-mounted drill, he watched the small hovercraft sink to the ground, engines straining, and failing, to keep it airborne.

"Well, that almost made me break a sweat." In part, as ever, the boast was not entirely idle. Robotnik was undeniably a quick study; despite his ability to produce impressive and enormous machinery such was the like of the station they were standing in, they were built to impress more than to be mechanically sound. Whenever Sonic flattened one of these mechs, it looked impressive because of its size, and rightly so, but it was not quite proportional to its real ability.

Likewise, Robotnik believed that when he took down Sonic he should appear truly as the conqueror, his iron fist raised high above as he toppled Mobius's hero. It had become an unwitting game of showmanship for the two, but even Sonic had his breaking points. Fighting against something full of brute strength took its toll to whittle down, even if he could have run several marathons simultaneously afterwards.

"It doesn't matter, hedgehog. In moments, the Death Egg's main cannon will have fired, and I will have won!" The rotund scientist smirked, thumping a fist against the dashboard of the Eggmobile, as if that would make it function again. Given the nature of some of his contraptions, the hedgehog half expected it to work.

"Yeah, no. Sal went to take it out, and since I don't have Nicole buzzing in my ear, telling me that she needs backup, it's safe to say that she's either shut it down or will have it shut down shortly." He replied, fishing through his pack for a pair of handcuffs. "So instead, we're gonna arrest you, and the two Starscreams you call lieutenants, and then leave this thing for GUN to dispose of."

"I admire your bravado, hedgehog." With a courtesy thump for posterity's sake the dictator sighed, letting the machine splutter and finally collapse against the floor. Every now and then the command pod just couldn't handle the strain. "But," he continued, clambering out, "the World Roboticizer can always be repaired. You haven't really done much more than given Mobius a…stay of execution, for want of a better word."

"Doc, you don't get it. You're bein' arrested!" The hedgehog opened his arms, taking a moment of his own to gloat.  
"I think not." He peered over his glasses at Sonic, grinning cruelly. "Metal!"  
"Huh-" he got halfway through a sardonic grin before something hammered into him, a dark blue screech of metal from the side, picking him up and throwing him across the room. Twisting instinctively the hedgehog writhed in the air, landing on his feet, skidding a moment before squaring off against his new opponent.

"Great, we're doing this again." Sonic groaned. Despite his continued dryness, the hedgehog could recognise that fighting the robotic doppelganger now, with a fair amount of energy already spent, would be a challenge alone. "How many times do we have to go through this before you twig that this whole "Metal me" thing doesn't work?"

The robot began to pace towards him, silently staring him down. _Alright, he's waiting for me to make the first move, as per usual, but still putting the pressure on... Got to think fast..._  
Suddenly the robot dove forward, sharpened claws extended and Sonic threw himself sideways with a backhanded smack that glanced against Metal's shoulder and did little more than misdirect his aim. Almost immediately the hedgehog was back on the front foot and giving chase, hurling a punch almost simultaneously as his opponent recovered and struck back. The two collided with a crash of energy and spun apart, smoke and sparks following their movements. Sonic didn't wait for a cue.

"Metal hasn't been you for a long time, hedgehog," Robotnik chuckled as he backed away from the duel, looking around for the exit, "He's a constantly evolving being. You haven't changed in years."  
True enough, he could see the changes in the artificial design's fighting style. It had started abruptly with the new offensive, trying to get the first hit in, trying to narrow Sonic's room to move and such, but these weren't big changes. Right now the worst case scenario would be him running out of energy before he could disable his shadow.

"Oh, of course. Who could forget such amazing design upgrades as "An arm cannon", which he doesn't have anymore. Of painting it green, making the air intake look like a toaster, and calling it "Mecha Scourge". Which existed for less than a day, got blown up, and never got rebuilt. And of course, the most amazing upgrade: An engine that made it amazingly fast and strong, and capable of warping through dimensions without a Chaos Emerald, along with armour strong enough to withstand a hit from Super Scourge. Which this clearly isn't, or those hits would've actually hurt me."

He jinked around the robot's continued offensive, getting as close as possible before aiming a boost at its head. Metal Sonic lurched to try and evade and failed, the strike scoring a deep gouge down the side of his head, pinging him against the ground.

"Face it, Doc. Metal evolves, but then you get lazy and revert it back to the original design again, _because you don't want him to beat me_. If he beat me, you wouldn't get the satisfaction. Ol' tin grin gets short-changed because you can't let yourself win unless you the one with your finger on the trigger."  
The tall Overlander said nothing, but words weren't necessary. He'd hit that nail on the head a long time ago. If the fight didn't come down to the two of them, he couldn't be satisfied, and so he could produce Metal Sonic as nothing more than a decent fight.

The only real reason that the tyrant wasn't dead or in jail by now was due to sheer brute force and numbers, and Sonic's moral code. His threat had always been close to a façade for the hedgehog alone, too afraid was he of not being the one to finish the job.  
"Doctor. The remaining intruders have been apprehended. Sonic the Hedgehog is the only known aggressor remaining."

The voice came as a shock to both madman and hedgehog, the door grumbling open as a figure stepped into the room. Its pace was measured but rigid and militaristic, stopping a respectful distance from Robotnik, eyes set on Sonic as Metal returned to its feet.  
Behind crimson dots, Mecha Sally regarded him with no more emotion than you would a gnat to be stepped on.  
And Robotnik started laughing.

"S-Sal?"

Her body was covered in interlocking metal plates, segmented around her midsection, neck, and tail to allow greater movement. As she finished her progress and came to a halt the black, malleable skin beneath them disappeared from view, along with the restraining bolts that bolstered the plate over her core. Her knees, ankles, and elbows shifted as hinges, bound to her body by multi-layered ball-joints that hissed smoothly with each twitch. Her clothing had formed an extra layer of armour, but owing to the princess' less-than-conventional clothing choices, only her back, sides, and shoulders were protected, the latter at least shielded by angular pauldrons. It was all just too uncanny, too close to reality, enough to make Sonic physically nauseous. This was his Sally…but it wasn't.

Her hands remained small and dextrous, her palms containing standard-issue concussion blasters, her fingers tipped with retractable claws, a worker Robian's only lines of defence, besides the small blades mounted on her kneecaps, and the short spurs on her elbows. Her joints, along with her waist, were marked with circular lights, blazing crimson, while another rested at the top of her chest, blinking with a faint pulse. Beyond that, and the glassy, black surface of her optics, everything had remained the same colour as when she had been flesh and blood. Now, nothing moved unless she willed it, and it was only her eyes that shifted to watch Robotnik. "Your command?"

Briefly, the dictator failed to notice her query, too busy whooping in delight at this fantastic turn of events, the hilarity of it enough to make his ribs hurt. His laughter descended into coughing, then vicious hacking before he caught himself and straightened again, still clapping his hands in delight. "Sonic, it appears I must refute you! I may have just found something I'd want to kill you just as much as myself! But you'd want to do what she says, wouldn't you?" Grinning through bright teeth, he looked down to his newest minion. "Mecha Sally, apprehend Sonic the Hedgehog. Don't worry about him being uninjured."

"Affirmative, Master." She droned, raising her palms towards him, twin scarlet pulses stabbing out towards the hedgehog.  
"Sal, come on, you're stronger than this! Fight him!" Sonic shouted, diving away. Inside, he knew he wasn't going to break through whatever programming had been put in her head just by yelling at her, but at the moment, he had no idea what he could do.  
"I am stronger than you."

She came at him, again and again and each time he twisted just out of reach, stepping and shifting out of reach. He just couldn't bring himself to fight back; the idea that she was a Robian still hadn't sunk in, and it wasn't a thought he was interested in letting settle. Sal couldn't be like this – he was the one who took the worst of it, jumped in front of the bullet, not her. He…couldn't hit her. He could fight her like this – it wasn't right.

But Metal Sonic hadn't chosen now to be idle. Between one opponent he refused to attack and the other whom he was too shaken to combat, the fight was practically over. Whenever Sally struck forward he backed up and the other mechanical being was there, penning him in. She opened up with the concussion blasters and he'd try and rake across his back, and he couldn't pick one to focus on. With minor cuts and scratches on his arms and chest where he hadn't been fast enough, he ran.

He wasn't some orator or wordsmith; he didn't know what to say that might have helped, nor did he know how he could stop her without hurting her. He ran, knowing what he was doing but terrified of accepting that he was fleeing away from her, leaving her like this. He ran, hoping that it was just some terrible nightmare. He ran, not knowing what else to do.


	3. Chapter 2: Plan B

The sounds of scraping, fire roaring, followed him from the room. With one robot in the air and one on the ground Sonic fled the scene, retracing his route as best he could back through the ship. Most of it came on instinct, the rest of his brain not really paying much attention anymore, too focussed on the face of one of his pursuers, burned into his vision.  
 _Sal. They got Sal. How?_  
He'd been there to lead everyone away, to stop them going after her; that had been his job.  
 _I didn't do enough. I let them get to her._

In a way, it didn't really matter all that much at this point. The fact was, Sally was a Robian, a thought that cut as deep as any knife. More than that, what she'd said…he was the only one left…what about the other two? Bunnie, Rotor? Had they gotten to them? They were due to leave the same time as him, when Sally took out the gun…he didn't even know if she'd made it to her objective. That could be three people on his conscience.

Somewhere in the mess of thoughts, he found the sense of mind to try his com-bead.

"Bunnie? Rote? Nikki? Anyone!?"

 _"Sonic?"_ Tails' voice echoed back. _"What's wrong?"_  
"Tails, it... Everything! I can't contact Bunnie, Rotor or Nicole, I don't know if anyone got their jobs done, and Sal..."  
 _"... Sonic, what happened to Sally?"_  
"Sal's been roboticized!"

The line went silent. Only the howl of the wind told him it was still open.

 _"B-but that's... that's impossible... The Bem made it impossible. There's no way a Roboticizer could even work..."_  
"Well it happened!"  
 _"Y-you're sure it's not a copy like Metal Sonic?"_  
"I…" The hedgehog caught himself. It could have been a copy, and Robotnik was just the kind of person to pull a stunt like that. "She on the radio?"

Static fed itself back to him as the fox switched away to a different channel for a moment, cycling through the ones they used, calling her name, until the howling and crackling once again resolved itself. "Nothing. I can't hear her anywhere."  
"What now?" Behind him, the sounds of pursuit began to fade. "What about the others? She…she said they got them."  
 _"_ _Then…damn…Did she take it out?"_  
"Something must've, but how would she overpower both of them? Even with the initial shock, they could've held her down, right?! I mean, one half-Robian with combat-grade limbs, and one powered armour? More than a match for a worker Robian... It must've been something else. There's got to be some kind of other weapon on here..."

 _"…_ _which means we're getting you out of there."_ Tails completed his thought for him, a damning one at that.  
"No!" He snapped, but his pace didn't slow.  
 _"_ _Sonic, tell me seriously, would you hurt Sally if it's really her?"_  
"I…"  
" _And that's not even mentioning whatever managed to take down the other two. You're the only one in there and I'm not set to get involved. We have to get you out of there now._ "

Damn him…damn the logic, the truth in his words. That bastard had Sally, and even Bunnie and Rotor, and if they left he would be leaving them at the mercy of a mad dictator he wouldn't trust with a soufflé. He'd be leaving them with Metal Sonic, and the mysterious force he hadn't seen. But he was tiring…near-exhausted by tearing through Robotnik's newest creation, and with his dark doppelganger not far behind. He wasn't in any position to stay, but every gut instinct he had told him he shouldn't be leaving.

"How soon can we be ready to come back?" He asked. If it wouldn't take long, then he could at least ease the sick feeling in his stomach.  
 _"I don't know, okay?"_ Tails snapped. _"I'm not the tactical guy. I can give it a go, but... it's not my area of expertise..."_  
"Then go back down and get yourself and the others ready, and bring them back up here. I'll keep evading, and we can regroup and stop them."  
 _"Sonic, I don't have anything made to subdue Robians. The only things that work are instant deroboticization, which we don't have, Nicole's hacking, which takes time and requires her palmtop, which would've been with Sally, and a Power Ring, which we only get once every twelve hours, and it's not due for another eight."_

The fox couldn't help but sympathise with Sonic. He didn't know what had gone on in there and only had the hedgehog's word, little to go on when it came from someone who was neither a technical nor strategic expert. Listening to it from an outside perspective, though, they had no good options. They either left team members behind and had them assigned as AWOL, or risked a more-than-suicidal rescue mission with what they had. As palatable as all these options were, Tails felt that backing off now would give them the best chance to save everyone.

If they fell back, they could regroup with Nicole and Antoine, and Amy…it sounded less and less optimistic as he thought about it. Only the AI was really fit to take on opponents on the same level as the two adepts, leaving a swordsman and whatever the hedgehog girl could do. Not a team that inspired much confidence. Still, it evened the odds more than Sonic sticking around.  
 _"_ _Just get out of there, Sonic."_ He sighed, not believing the words himself. _"_ _We'll save her, but not now, not like this."_

"I'm not leaving her! Or the others!" Sonic shouted. "After everything that's happened! After eighteen years of this, I'm not letting it go like this, just when things are starting to look up!"  
 _"No, you're not. But you can't do it like this. If we're going to save them, we need to regroup."_ Tails groaned. _"Or you can run in there, and get yourself killed or roboticized, and leave the rest of us in an even tighter spot! We can't do it like this, Sonic."_

Ultimately, the hedgehog had to make the call. Stay or go.

"Alright, where do you want me?"

However he blustered and boosted his own ego, he was tired. Exhausted and shattered by what he'd seen, and he wanted nothing more than to turn round, meet Metal head on and take Sally away, or try and talk her down. But he had other friends, the guys back home, who would need him.

 _"_ _Back to the room we opened to get you in here. Let me know when you're there and I'll swing by."_

He was going to have to jump. "Alright, not long now." He couldn't hear anything from behind him now; they must have given up the chase, leaving her to return to…him. There wasn't any special weaponry on her…maybe he'd just put her to work doing usual Robian stuff. She'd be safe, for the time being. They'd be able to come back and pick her up when they'd got themselves sorted.  
Yeah, that'd work.

Leaning around a corner, he found himself looking at the back of a large group of repair robots and legionized slaves- captured victims, not useful enough to make soldiers, but under the same situation as their combat-ready counterparts- either programmed to obey, or forced on pain of having an internal cherry bomb detonated, killing them.

"Tails, I've got a bit of a roadblock. I'm gonna have to take a running jump, so you're gonna have to catch me mid fall rather than being there."  
 _"_ _Call it."_ Mother of all trust falls, here. He knew the fox would be waiting, spinning towards the opening and ready to move the moment he saw the flailing blue dot against the clouds.  
He broke from cover, gaining speed and ground. Such was his velocity that he was on them before they realised, jinking through the mass as his presence filtered through their minds.

"Get him!" The call came too late, the words ringing out as he broke clear of the crowd, the pair of lumbering repair drones registering the situation and turning to intercept, the hole largely sealed by expanding foam and cabling. They weren't quick enough though, heavy-lifters and he wasn't there to fight, and he tore between them, contorting into a ball, spines extended, and tearing through the patchwork. Noise exploded and the wind screamed, his shout for his pseudo-brother almost lost in the howl of noise as he threw himself clear of the floating fortress.

Uncurling, he spotted the Tornado, now returned to its normal form, pulling up alongside him, nose down. He carefully steered himself closer to it, gripping the wing tightly as the fox began to level out.

"Sonic, get in the back, quickly! We've got no cover and the further we get away from it, the more weapons can target us!" Tails shouted over the wind again. He trusted to the hedgehog's sureness to clamber into his seat, the fox not taking his eyes off the monitors, watching for the tell-tale lock-on signs.

Needless to say, it was going to be a rough trip back to Mobotropolis.

* * *

"I…know what happened. At least, I heard it." Nicole was the only one there to greet them when they landed, touching down on one of the city's auxiliary runways. Despite their insistence to be there when they came back the remaining FF had at least understood the graveness of the situation, and even now were preparing.  
"And the main gun? You got it?" The kitsune already suspected the answer, but needed to hear it.  
The AI gave him a thin, almost hollow smile. "Down. If we'd failed that much, it would have fired by now."

"What happened in there?" Sonic asked. He seemed different now. The fire from the station had gone, and he looked drawn and pale.  
"Lien-Da and Snively were cloaked, in the room. They fooled the motion trackers. They still wanted me to turn the machine off- Even they can see the folly in being an Emperor with no Empire. When that was done, Lien-Da tried to destroy me, and Sally took the hit... After that..."

"Shit…" The hedgehog had few words for the situation. "And the others…"  
"My guess is that she got to them." All told, the lynx had the best standing right now. She was a sentient being, as much as anyone else she knew, but with careful software management and controlled bloatware she could numb her senses a little. It made it easier to react effectively in this aftermath. "I lost contact with Rotor long before his suit went offline, so with any luck they're not dead."

Luck…something they were in short supply of right now, it seemed. The whole thing had gone to hell in a handbag so very quickly.  
Tails kept things moving. "Any idea how to handle the situation? Got any plans?" He had absolutely no idea how they were meant to sort it out.  
"I've been trying." The lynx shook her head. "We go back there now, and they'll shoot us out the sky, and if they get back over Empire airspace they're out of our reach." They couldn't do anything now, and couldn't do anything later, and their only link to what was going on was the handheld. It couldn't do anything unless someone plugged it in.

"Getting there isn't a problem. I can take some of the old prototype Tornado II's and rig their autopilots to suit your systems, allowing you to fly them as our cover." Tails folded his arms. "It'll be a hash job, but you should be able to control them well enough to cover us."  
"And the catch?"  
"We're at a loss once we get up there. Not only are we so short on people that we'd have to all go ourselves, meaning we have to find a way inside the thing to land, but we've got no way to neutralise Mecha Sally long enough to free her."  
"There is one other problem."

She got quizzical looks, almost as if the pair didn't expect that it could go downhill any faster than it already was. Without lungs she breathed a heavy sigh, and explained. They couldn't measure up like this. If their enemy had Bunnie and Rotor, they had another two of their best there, with the capacity to take them and use them. They had the capacity to once again perform roboticization, that much was certain and so the walrus would fall there. Bunnie was a less certain story, true, but they had legionization for that.

Then there was the distinct lack of relative power in the allies they still had. Antoine's skill at arms wasn't up for debate, but it was nevertheless a sword against harder metals. That kind of blade was meant against other swords anyway, and coupled with grief for loss of Bunnie it would make the coyote much less effective. Amy, on the other hand, was simply unskilled. Her chances of hitting her opponent were outstripped by the reverse, giving her a negligible combat impact at most. She had received training from Julie-Su, but that was a direct reaction to Fiona leaving, and more aimed at fighting unarmed organics like the vixen. She could break robots by the dozen, but a combatant like Mecha Sally or Bunnie would be horrendously dangerous to her.

"We need to see who else can help..." Tails sighed. "There's no way we can do this on our own."  
"That much is obvious. Come on." The AI gestured for them to follow and they fell into step a she led them away. Standing around talking about it was all well and good, but didn't' get anything actually done beyond the debating. "We've got friends all over Mobius; people we've worked with or are owed favours by."  
"The obvious ones are the Wolf Pack and GUN, they should be our first choices." Tails added. "Especially since we don't know the state of the Secret Service after Geoffrey went to work for Naugus. And on the subject of that, we need to work out what happened there. Geoffrey might be a jerk, but he's not evil, so there must be something off going on there."

"GUN better get to work quick if they wanna help. They're the only people with easy access to the firepower needed to destroy the Death Egg." Sonic mused.  
"Speaking of, I did manage one small victory for us: I managed to wipe out the control software for the cannon from the Death Egg. With the damage I was able to do to its internals, they might have to land it somewhere and make repairs." Of course, they would come down in the empire most likely, putting it out of reach, unless they intervened.

Tails reached the conclusion faster than the other two. "Nicole, let's get those planes rigged, and get on the line to GUN."  
"I was-" she began, then faltered as she caught onto his urgency. "Wait, you're going to go back up there now? Even if they agreed to help immediately, they wouldn't get equipment like that up there in time, nor have the manpower to rescue everyone we have inside!"  
"Not my plan." He smiled. He might not have had a grip on the same form of strategy as Sally did, but he understood machines, reactors, engines, flight.

If a flaw developed in a machine and was left to fester for too long, it would begin to grow like any common disease. The failures developed by the many errors involved in interacting with a malfunctioning system would soon damage other, fully-functioning programs and hardware, meaning that if something broke, you had to fix it. When the source of the problem lay within a sophisticated station full of millions of these subsystems, it happened that much faster. Of course, if a group of miscreants threw wrenches into the works, it just exacerbated things.

"We don't need them to destroy it or mount an assault, we just need a picket line to slow it down, maybe change course." He explained, the ideas coming to him. "Whatever it is, it makes it take longer to get back within safe empire airspace. We hit it at the same time and smash as much of its mobility systems as we can. Ion projectors, flight controls, anything, and bring it down early. It can only take so many hits to its engines before they need fixing, and a grounded battle station is a whole lot less difficult than a flying one."

"Alright then, I'll get on that." Nicole nodded. "You two need to break the news to the others."  
"Right..." Sonic glanced at his friend, and nodded slowly. "We tell the others first, then Elias and the council, then the general populace."  
"Alright." Tails nodded slowly. "Let's go."

Nicole faded out of the area, disappearing back into her systems, leaving the two adepts to begin the trudge towards the Freedom Fighters' secondary base in the city, neither speaking as they did so. Each one was wrapped up in his thoughts, dealing with the stunning fallout. For Tails, it was the startling reality that he was now the strategic lead of the team. Despite have focussed his studies into technology until now, his level of intelligence made him the only viable replacement when Nicole had enough work multi-tasking as it was.  
For Sonic…his thoughts only went one place.

Fortunately, despite their reputation, the larger portion of the city's populace was more concerned with their own daily routine to notice the dour looks on the heroes' faces. With the Death Egg moving out and away from the city and the defences going into standby mode, relief was the general mood of the populace, and so two less than happy individuals passing among a throng of positivity mainly missed their notice.

The duo arrived at the second Freedom Base, opening the door slowly. Inside, Antoine and Amy were standing, both looking uneasy. They'd been running crowd control during the panic caused by the Death Egg's rise.

"Ant... Ames... we've got some bad news..."  
"Oui. We know."

* * *

"Damage report."  
"Major damage to main cannon computer; it is currently incapable of firing. Minor structural damage sustained to the main cannon firing chamber and a number of service chambers. Superficial damage sustained to numerous corridors and rooms."  
"Hmph." With his station now roaring ponderously back towards his empire for repair, the dictator was left to handle the tedium of administration and repair. For now though, he was more than happy to tolerate it; he had scored a deep and rending victory against the Freedom Fighters, even if it had not been his primary goal. Having his underlings absent for his fight with Sonic had been an apparent masterstroke.

"Anything else?" Now he planned to take full advantage of his victory. Wherever Sally had been roboticized it had made her into nothing more than a prized worker drone, and so for now she could handle the menial task of cleaning up the mess her former friends had made.  
"I was captured with the remote handheld device of the entity: Nicole on my person. This device was removed by Grandmistress Lien-Da before I was roboticized."  
And his victory grew by the moment. Though Bunnie and Rotor appeared to have fled, having a precious link to the city AI had untold possibilities. "Oh? And what do you suppose we could do with that, hm?"

"Recommendation: In the event of capture, it is intended to lock Nicole down from the handheld to prevent enemy incursion. I can attempt to decipher the encoding and establish a connection."  
In the privacy of his command room, Robotnik could only laugh at the prospect. That would be truly poetic, the strategic leader of the Freedom Fighters captured then immediately turned to cracking their shell.  
"Make it so."


	4. Chapter 3: Contingency

"Yes, I know it's short notice, but we don't need a full fleet." With the best access to communication software and the speed with which to enact any decision they made, it fell to the AI to liaise quickly between the Acorn Kingdom and any other nations, especially in the case of high-profile calls and interactions. Within minutes of making the decision with the others she had begun making preparations to contact GUN, but that had involved looking inwards rather than out. Even with the amount of autonomy she was allowed, this had to go through the crown and the organisations that surround it. "Just fast-movers."

 _"_ _That's…within plausibility, assuming you don't intend them to engage alone."_ Fortunately, after rendezvousing with Elias and establishing a connection to United Federation forces, they'd been patched through to the current administration. With Robotnik's latest weapon in the air many GUN forces were already on standby, but their location made it hard to intervene quickly in large numbers.  
"If it goes well, they won't need to be directly involved at all. We need them to engage in a delaying action and buy enough time for our team to get in range." Patched in through the palace's war chamber systems, Nicole's current body had to spare constant glances back at the king. He technically had the power to veto anything said.

 _"_ _What exactly have you got in mind?"_  
"We're going to ground it. Right now it's not a threat, but if it can get back in its own airspace it can repair, and then we have a problem we're not ready to deal with. They're on the defensive, so we cripple it now and flatten it quickly." They spoke to a holographic map display, but anywhere in the room would have done. Elias, sitting a distance away from her could hear without complaint, and he could involve himself without moving.  
"We would appreciate it if you could have a larger support force moving up during the operation to finish the job, but the Freedom Fighters will have command for this mission." There were few things he needed to say personally, but this was one of them. He had his duty after all, and his own authority. "They have hostages inside that we need to retrieve before the Death Egg can be removed permanently."  
 _"May we enquire as to the identity of these hostages?"_

Nicole and Elias glanced at each other for a moment, then nodded slowly.

"Three of our agents. Mrs. Bunnie DeCoolette, née Rabbot, and Mr. Rotor Walrus went missing aboard the vessel, with reports that they were captured... The third is Princess Sally herself. Unfortunately, she has... been roboticized, and claimed personal responsibility for the other two captures." It was fortunate the lynx was there to mediate between the two factions. Though the king was holding himself together remarkably well, the shock of hearing about Sally's state had left him less than prepared to attend to matters of state without aid.

There was silence bar some static from the other end of the line as the generals and council members discussed the situation. _"_ _We…understand the severity of the situation. The assistance provided by the kingdom as a whole to the United Federation and the involvement of the Freedom Fighters has not gone unnoticed. Based on our estimates, we can have forty percent of our light airborne forces intercept the station's current trajectory in…two hours."_

"And the relief force?"  
 _"_ _Uncertain. It relies heavily on the success of your operation. Another hour on our most optimistic estimates. We recommend you intercept along the edge of the desert to minimise environmental damage."_

"Duly noted." Nicole allowed herself a faint smile. THey were in with a chance now, however slim. "I will have all of the available Freedom Fighters prepared and ready to launch once you report an all-clear."  
 _"Understood. We will be in touch as soon as possible."_ One of the commanders replied. _"Have you informed the general populace of the Princess'... predicament?"_

"No, and we'd appreciate it being kept that way for the meantime. If this operation succeeds then there will be no need to let them know. If not…"  
"If not, we will make provision for it." Elias rescued her from the awkward situation. It was his duty to speak to the media and take the brunt of the public unrest, though that had not been the case not too long ago. "If you could avoid writing up your press report until we know the outcome of this attack, it'd be appreciated."  
 _"_ _The United Federation already owes the kingdom a great debt. We will not cause you any more problems than you already face. UF command out."_ The link cut sharply from the other end.

"Well, that's something..." Nicole sighed, collapsing on a nearby seat. "I... I don't know how we can do this, your majesty... I... What about Naugus?"  
"Ignore him." He too, relaxed visibly. "This is more important, and it can't wait. I'll…even in his case, a claim like his can be stalled beyond belief. I'm not my father, but I'm pretty sure I can dig up plenty of red tape. Take care of this first."  
"Alright... I hope I can... With the way he's been riling people up, they keep harassing me... I'm sorry, it's just I... I..."

He held up one hand to silence her, barely turning. "Nicole, you are this city. What's more, you've got my support, and that of the other Freedom Fighters. The people believe in you, however little they show it, but they're scared. We're all afraid of things we don't understand, and Naugus is preying on that fear. In the end it's all bluster, and once we take care of him you'll see what the people of this kingdom really think."

Nicole smiled faintly again, and stood up.

"Thank you, sir... I'll return to the others now, and tell them the plan." She spoke quietly - even with the reassurance, she wasn't feeling fantastic. "Then I have modifications to make to some old Tornado prototypes."  
"Go do what you do best." He smiled as confidently as he could in return. "And I'll do what I do best – make fat old men in fancy robes feel insignificant."

Nicole chuckled slightly, and flickered back into the digital aether she called home, the city fading into a modular, green-glowing copy, the people replaced with chunky, non-sentient programs. She moved herself toward the Freedom Fighter's building, travelling much faster in the virtual realm than she did in the physical one. She'd never put much thought into the look of this world beyond the necessity of it – it was all basically here, and people didn't look particularly amazing on the inside. Still, it was full of latent defensive programs all hiding in the framework, just out of sight in case they were needed.

People passed by slowly, hundreds of times so, at a pace that had bored her to begin with – though she could interact on a daily basis with most regular folk, she couldn't slow down her thought speed to account for it, and as such she lived a life far faster than all of her friends. She thought more and got more done, and in turn she was more easily stressed. Arriving at the building in question, she waved her hands, and began to form a new nanite body to inhabit. It took form, gained her colours, and she loaded her consciousness into it, all within a few seconds. She opened her eyes as the white glare faded, and looked around her sullen allies.

"GUN is sending a small squadron to intercept the Death Egg and provide us with primary cover. Elias has elected to avoid revealing what has happened to Sally until after we return with her. For now, the most we will mention is that she has been captured, and that's only if we have to." She looked to Tails; the fox had planned to contact the Wolf Pack, but that was a task easier said than done. Like their own Freedom Fighters, other such resistance groups were frequently indisposed in the field.

"I'm afraid the Wolf Pack must be dealing with something important- There was nobody left on comm duty." He said. "I'll try again shortly."  
"Alright. In the meantime, you could help me with the Tornado mods, maybe?"  
"Of course, I was going to do that anyway."

"Tzere is sometzing else to address." Antoine spoke up. "Who will be leading us during Sally's absence?"  
"Ant's got a point." Sonic mumbled. "Normally she passes interim leader duties off to me, but this situation needs some level of tactical ability..." The hedgehog was about as tactful as a necrophile at a funeral, but they didn't have many people who were left, let alone who could take over the mantle. The two hedgehogs were counted out almost immediately, practically for the same reason, and Antoine worked best engaging on his own. Only Tails and Nicole were viable replacements, and neither of them wanted the mantle.

"Very well…I'll do that for now." It was yet another duty on top of all of her others, but the AI knew about the role more than the rest of them. She'd worked with Sally formulating plans and had served as tactical advisor in and out of the field.  
"Thanks, Nikki." Sonic put a hand on her shoulder. "You'll do fine. We'll have Sal back in no time..."

It didn't take a telepath of Nicole's prowess to sense that Sonic was nowhere near as certain of that as he wanted to appear. The heavy uneasiness filled the room again, leaving the five remaining Freedom Fighters looking awkwardly at the floor. However sound the plan was, the team wasn't. No matter how much they psyched up for it, they'd lost their strategist, a heavy hitter and a tech specialist, and now they would be fighting at least one of them, with members who were mainly reserves.

"Tails, maybe we should…" She didn't really need to finish the sentence for the kitsune to nod and rise. They had work to do and no encouraging words for each other; sitting in silence wouldn't make it any easier. Tails crossed to the door, looking back at he others.  
"I'll see you later." He said quietly, and stepped out of the door. Nicole faded away again - she didn't like venturing outside at the moment, leaving the remaining trio in an awkward silence.

Amy tried to break it. "So…what now?"  
"We wait." Sonic replied, "We sit and…fucking…wait." There was no fight in him, not right now, when he wasn't moving. With everyone else either waiting like him or engaged in prep work, the waiting between now and getting out there was the worst thing for him to be doing right about now.  
Antoine shifted uncomfortably in the ensuing silence. "Sonic…you and I…we 'ave both been put in tze most uncomfortable of positions, no?"  
"Say what?"

"We…we both 'ave strong partners, and yet, eeht is us who must save tzem. Seems…ironic."

Sonic's eyes narrowed. "I'm stronger than Sal, physically. I should've been there. What does another scrap with Eggman matter in the grand scheme of things? Nothing... I even took a shot at him for his complacency with Metal... I shouldn't have left her."

He tensed, his quills spiking up and shredding the back of his chair. The coyote regarded the shift with a moment of surprise, but nothing more. He had nothing to fear from Sonic. "And yet…here we are. I feel as if I should 'ave been tzere…for all tze good eeht would 'ave done. I cannot remember who eeht was who said eeht, but strength does not always mean preventing tze worst, it means correcting eeht when tze worst happens."

"Right, well... Let's "correct it", then." Sonic said, standing up, and stalking towards the door. "I'm going for a run. I'll stay close to the city, but I need to burn off steam."  
"Alright... Stay safe, Sonic." Amy replied. He nodded dismissively, and left the building. He got it, that they were all suffering right now, that they were trying to help by talking to him, but it all felt so hollow. It all just bounced off him, felt like knives. He just needed to get Sal back; that was it.

* * *

"Our course is currently set to take us on the most direct route back to safe Empire airspace."  
 _"_ _Hm…good, good. Shouldn't take long…"_ Though he could not resist bombarding his catch with an endless tirade of questions and commentary, the novelty of having her in his presence had quickly worn off without someone to laud it over. With her capabilities in mind he had retired her to the laboratories for the journey to inventory items recovered from the fight. It was a job he was happy to be able to delegate to others. " _Anything else to report?_ "

"Nothing. I shall continue to work on the computer, and report again when it is done."  
 _"Good, good... dismissed."_ The line died, and Mecha Sally turned away from microphone, back to the small handheld. The palmtop had been plugged into the Death Egg's computer. She stroked her chin, optics narrowing, as she typed code after code into the device, digging through firewalls and defences.

Theoretically it should be impossible to break through these algorithms; they had been designed by the most powerful computer on the planet as her defence mechanism against unwanted intrusions. Unfortunately, they came hand in hand with locking out of the handheld, meaning Nicole could no longer randomise the strings; they became regular. Complex, but regular. She need only find the pattern. Even that would have been difficult…if she did not know her old friend so well. The barriers that she had put in herself weren't even an obstacle. She could simply input her own password, and deactivate them, ready to be put back in place once she was finished- Much more efficient than the smash-and-grab methods favoured by her captor.

Traces of her target flashed across the screen, active, but unaware of her presence. Injecting the program she had written, she prepared to bring it across into the Death Egg's systems, where its defences would be relatively fragile. Despite the mad doctor's genius, his computer designs were nowhere near as complex and difficult to work with as Nicole's, and by isolating a program, intelligent or otherwise, within the less advanced systems, she could give it a much lower chance of defending itself.

But her target was elusive, flickering back and forth across her search like a maddened insect. It moved with no thought for its destination – she doubted at this point it had anywhere to really go, but it moved still, and in conjunction with having to dodge the inner defences and deflect her master's questions, she had not set herself a simple objective.  
 _You're there. You've always been there._  
A moment later, and her probe latched onto something, sending back a stream of high-frequency requisitions. Tapping a few more keys, the screen nearest her gained a reddish tint, followed by the computers surrounding it, then the ones around those, until every screen in the room displayed the same glow.

 _Perfect._

* * *

Miles away, in Mobotropolis' main hangar, Nicole hovered over one of the grey, incomplete prototypes that the Tornado-2 had been based on, several years ago now, as she carefully began to sync herself up with its on-board computers. Floodlights streaming down from above on the two dozen prototypes and mid-development variants, it struck her how much they looked like the phalanxes of old standing in parade.

Honestly, they weren't much more advanced than that. As many of them had not survived beyond the testing phase, while the bodies were complete and flight-worthy if not for storage wear, they had little software beyond the minimal flight programming and combat tech installed. There was ample room for her modifications, but many of them needed patches that would have to be installed on the fly.

As she finished loading her codes into the small plane, the lynx felt a slight twinge in the back of her head. She paused- Lacking nerve endings, she should not have felt anything, and yet, there was the sensation of a numb, aching pain growing in her mind. She blinked a few times, and began to clutch her head with one hand, groaning quietly, albeit not quiet enough for Tails to miss, and he was working on refitting the wiring only a few feet below.

At first, he thought nothing of it, simply dismissed it as the groan of shifting metal in a room full of the stuff, until its pitch changed, and he guessed its origin. Copper strips inside rubber tubing could wait; he wheeled himself out to see the AI, her current body half-slumped against the side of the machine, as if hungover from a night clubbing. Artificial Intelligence didn't have the _ability_ to be hungover. "Nicole, what's wrong?"  
"I…I…" She didn't look at him to begin with, simply stuttered and shook her head. "Not sure…"  
"Well, how do you feel?"  
"It's strange... it's like... there was something there, but now... it's gone."  
"Maybe we should run a diagnostic?"  
"That's not all... I feel like something's missing, but there don't seem to be any gaps in my memory..."

There had to be something wrong – with no organic parts she was immune to such menial things as headaches or migraines, and any actual fault – such as a dead processor or failing storage block – showed an immediate and identifiable change, along with a system alert. This was just some general feeling of discomfort, something she did not often feel without conscious decision. Even when the feeling passed, that loss remained, the sense of emptiness she couldn't quite shake.  
"Did someone try and hack you?"  
"It…no, it doesn't feel right. I've got deep scans going everywhere and they're not picking up any malware, spyware, or hunter-killers, or anything else you'd expect, and all of my caches are verifying as complete and uncorrupted."

"Check your firewalls, see if they're still up." Tails said.  
"Right, right... sorry, I should've done that first." She said, still visibly shocked. "Oh my..."  
"What?"  
"Everything's gone, except for the ones Sally put in. Most of my own defences have been broken down...but…everything's still there." Someone had broken in – that fact was undeniable, but for what purpose? Nothing left, nothing taken, it was as if someone had done it to prove that they could.

But there wasn't anyone that would do that. Not even the hot-shot coders fresh out of class would try it on an AI, and all of the people with legitimate reasons to hack her would have left more visible marks of their presence than this: offline defences that could be reinstalled and calibrated as necessary.  
"We should keep working." She brought herself back to the task at hand. "I'll…keep searching, see if I can turn anything up, but we need to get these off the ground."


	5. Chapter 4: Retaliation

On Mobius, the name Sonic the Hedgehog was not a claim to fame in the Acorn Kingdom alone. Alone or with his friends the charismatic figure had saved people and civilisations all across the planet, and the planet itself on a handful of occasions . The United Federation was no exception; humanity was no less predisposed to tragedy than anywhere else, and in conjunction with their military forces at GUN, the Freedom Fighters were owed a great deal. What's more, this was all in living memory – many had witnessed these events and lived to tell the tale, unable to pass it off as some old story or long-settled debt. Even the businessmen saw the value.

So, when they committed a substantial number of their air forces to aid the recovery of some of the Acorn kingdom's best operatives, no one second-guessed it. The soldiers were ready for the operation as was expected of them, and as the decisions came in for the generals they didn't need to question the tact of such a mission.

The already-airborne troops were not diverted; many of those out on patrol were in the middle of or just finishing their routes, and such would be tired or at least feeling the weight of several shifts on them. Instead several squadrons of waiting light aircraft were scrambled into the air with technical precision, forming up into teams and roaring out over the planet in lightly-armed recon jets outfitted with light tactical payloads, by far the fastest way to catch up with the ponderous but powerful battle station.

When they encountered it on its course east they met resistance, the mechanised teams orbiting the ship identifying a threat as the human planes rejected their call IDs. Fighters swarmed into each other and for a brief period the operation fell into a series of swift and dizzying dogfights, pitting organic unpredictability against machined logic. Unfortunately for Robotnik his squads were dealing with veterans in the air, experienced fighters who could handle themselves against targets like this.

Approximately two hours after deployment and only a few minutes into the main engagement, the remaining fighters – of which there were many – were beginning scattered strafing runs, targeting exhaust outlets and manoeuvring thrusters between the bursts of short-range flak from the close defences. Such bug-bites and glancing blows would not be nearly enough to deal lasting damage, even if they sustained it for a week, but that wasn't why they were there.

Striking at the same side over and over they began to harry it away from its intended route, forcing it south towards the desert as planned. The pilots were quietly confident as they went about their business, despite the sphere dwarfing their entire group, since they were only meant to change its course and hold it there. Everything else was to be taken care of.

* * *

In Mobotropolis, the remaining Freedom Fighters had grouped together in the hangar, surrounded by Tails and Nicole's modified drones, along with both the Tornado-I and Tornado-II.

"We are really breaking out tze museum piece?" Antoine looked at the older, red-hued aircraft.  
"I did upgrade it to be almost as effective as the Tornado-II, only held back by a few of the inherit design flaws that I couldn't iron out." Tails paced the designs as he talked, making his final inspections before take-off.  
"What about the other one, though?" Amy asked. "The... Tornado-III, I guess?"  
"The Cyclone's a lot heavier, slower, and less agile. Comes from the whole 'transforming-mecha-plane' thing. If we took that, the team in it would be left behind, or the Tornado-II would have to match pace, and then we wouldn't make it.""

"I don't get it. The first one's older, wouldn't it be slower?"  
He shook his head. "It was slower because I hadn't had the improved engines back then. The MkIII is slow because there's more to it. I can amp up the engines, but not reduce the weight of the new model." Physics and aerodynamics worked against them in that aspect. Even with as much streamlining as was feasible, the aircraft would always carry a certain amount of weight unless he could find a better alloy. Until then they had to make do, or at least relegate it to a heavy support option. "The ones we're taking are as ready as they're going to be."

Standing to one side, Nicole had been monitoring GUN frequencies as they worked. Their timing was limited based on their allies' engagement, and so they needed to keep abreast of their movements. "They're passing over the kingdom," she reported, "we should get going soon if we want to get there in their wake."

"Roger that." Sonic nodded. "Everybody into the planes."  
"Wait, Nicole, how are you going to operate outside of the drones?" Amy spoke up. "The nanites don't work that far out, do they?"  
"No, they don't." The lynx shook her head. However, Tails, Rotor and I have worked out a solution to that, albeit a temporary one."

One of the smaller doors opened, and a new figure began to walk toward the party. It was a grey machine, resembling the basic skeleton of a Robian female. Its optics glowed the same green as Nicole's eyes, and as it drew level and paused, a beam projected from it, running over her holographic form.  
"Auto-type bodies are simple enough to make." Tails sighed, memories still sharp enough to make it uncomfortable. "Thin, as fragile as a Mobian. The expensive part is the software, and with Nicole around we don't need all that."

The major problem was that she therefore couldn't really fight alongside them. As it had been proven the Auto-automaton was effective as an infiltration agent, functional in close-quarters against equal opponents, but this body would serve as an antenna and little more, so as to give the AI a presence in the field. It carried a few small armaments- energy projectors in the palms, and a short blade mounted within each forearm, but the main modifcation to the design was an interface link mounted in each finger. Theoretically, they would be her means of access to the minds of any Robians they managed to subdue.

Nicole faded into the robot, as its frame melted, then reshaped itself to resemble her avatar.

"Okay... this is going to take some getting used to." Normally her reaction speeds were measured in milliseconds – light, the staple speed stamp of the universe, was her border, along with the physical limitations of her own hardware, already well beyond Mobian peaks. In this body she was limited to a far more realistic frame of mind, and her motions became much more deliberate. Everything was its own object, pre-determined parameters, while nanite and holographic bodies could just be readjusted.

"You'll have time during the flight, let's go." Sonic said, jumping onto the Tornado-I. "Tails and I are taking the less effective one."  
"Just pray the engines don't tear themselves free." The fox followed him in, flicking through the more rudimentary controls to get the engine started. His concern that the new mountings might not be solid enough was only a minor worry, but a grounded one nonetheless. Still, needs must as they always said.

For now, with everyone climbing into their own craft and Nicole firing up the engines of those she would be manning remotely, Sonic could enjoy a few moments of calm in his mind, devoid of the concerns of the past few hours. He could focus on the ambient activity and then the fight when the time came.

"Alright, we're cleared for takeoff." Tails announced. "Let's roll."

The hangar doors slid open, and the squadron began to taxi onto the runway. The boosters mounted on the aft of each plane fired, and they quickly left the ground, turning north to follow the still-retreating Death Egg.

With access to long-range radar and communication as well as at a squad level, the AI lynx quickly fell into step with coordinating on their end. "We'll have a visual in about fifteen minutes, but that's not saying much, owing to the size of that thing."  
"Roger!" She didn't catch the speaker.  
"Get in contact with GUN command, find out the status of the attacking force!"

Antoine was the first to get a line; Tails knew the frequencies by heart without having to cycle through the ones they knew, but the comm system had been one of the few tough sells. He hadn't even been able to get to a current model, simply a less ancient one, and as such it was far less reliable. The coyote had access to the modern controls, and a stronger connection. "Tzey 'ave begun tze engagement!"

"Good, let's catch up before they get driven back!" Sonic yelled. "Tails, this thing still have the battle mode from the whole thing with the planet breaking?"  
"Yeah, of course."  
"Then let's do that."

The planes' wings separated once again, the props folding away, and the boosters amped up again, sending the craft soaring towards the station. Now that the attack had begun, the Death Egg would have sent an automated call to its units stationed in the empire. They would be deploying if not already en-route, and so speed was of the essence. They had a very limited window in which to cripple the station and secure their targets.

"Tzey 'ave crippled much of tze station's mobility – tzey recommend we focus on tze main thrusters!" Evidently the coyote intended to act as the team liaison, a position that suited him fine given his relative ability against their opponents. Radio operator at least let him do a job and get some measurable result.

"Bringing that thing to a crash would enable a larger assault... Alright, roger that. Go low and swing upwards to hit it." Nicole said.  
"Already doing that." Tails' voice echoed back.

Sweeping downwards, the squadron accelerated closer to the station. The closer they got, the more the damage already done became apparent. Dirty streaks of scorched metal leaking fire and liquid plastered the equatorial region of the sphere, GUN aircraft strafing, facing off against squadrons and fixed defences that were still active. Enemy forces were wearing visibly thin by this point, the cloud of swarm fighters reduced to a scattered veil.

The primary concern was definitely the remaining ship-side defences; its total surface area gave it substantial room for gun mountings, and they had been deployed in plentiful supply.

"Alright, I'm setting the drones to cover us while we take out the engines." Nicole commanded.  
"Hey Tails, one question?" Sonic piped up. "How are we supposed to do this when our plane doesn't have the railgun?"  
"Stand up, grab a Ring, and use that projectile- Sonic Wind, I think you called it?" The fox replied. "We're improvising thus far, no need to stop!" They'd done some damage to the station earlier – it couldn't last against them long if they hit it fast.

The hedgehog shrugged at the rhetoric, planting his hands against the sides of his seat and lifting himself out onto the body of the plane. Fleet clung to the metal even in the high winds, a passive by-product of his powers keeping him grounded as much as possible. Even the blast of air didn't faze him; he'd become so used to that familiar sensation in his life that it was nothing new.

Twisting his fingers in a complex, unconscious gesture he flicked ring out from the ether bound to his reserve of Chaos energy. His body responded to the energy and collapsed its fragile physical form, energy threading back into his veins. A faint golden glow lit up around him, his eyes flashing yellow. He held his arms out, energy coalescing in his palms.

"Alright buddy, say when!" He yelled.  
He didn't need to wait long; moments later they were sweeping up alongside the massive metal monstrosity, and a wordless wave was all the indication he required, slinging the projectile away as he saw something important soar up. The bolt sailed with them full of momentum, striking the side of the craft with a roar of energy. The explosion rippled out and, with its continued arc of travel, burned away in a long streak before dying out, metal shearing away with plumes of flame following in sympathy.

Tails rolled away from the conflagration, spotting the second plane lining up and unloading the railgun into one of the largest engines. The shot disappeared into the nozzle. A moment later, an enormous gout of flame ripped the thruster apart. Smoke washed out in huge black plumes, sweeping over the nearby defensive turrets even as Nicole's drones raked across the struggling defences.

"Got to wonder how many floors that thing went up before it evaporated." Sonic mused.

"Several." Piloting the other ship, Antoine was the only other qualified flier there, if only by technicality. He wouldn't be much good if they ended up in a significant dogfight, but he had at least basic training and could line up a shot, especially against a target this big. If things got really hectic he could pass the firing controls back to Amy, but everyone, the hedgehog girl included, didn't think that would be a good idea.

"Sonic, take out another one!" The blue blur followed his little brother's gesture, sighting another one of the massive thrusters roaring with cobalt fire as they rounded towards it, banking and junking to avoid the flak rounds pumping out of various stubby defence turrets. By this point, GUN had done most of the crippling work for them – with a significant number of the manoeuvring jets and stability thrusters offline or failing, the main engines were taking on increasing pressure as the assault continued. Now with one of them disabled too it couldn't take much more punishment.

"Get me a good shot and I will!" Sonic called, warming up another surge. Swerving away from one of the few remaining turrets, Tails broke off his run, diving again to build up speed and realign himself. In the same moment, one of Nicole's drone fighters, flames belching from its side, one of its four wings missing, spiralled into the turret, both of them exploding.

" _Got you a clear path._ " Nicole announced.  
"How many have you lost?"  
"Just that one. The others have taken a few hits, but they're sturdy little things. Now bring this thing down!"  
"Roger that." Tails nodded, wheeling around to face the station again. Accelerating upwards, he locked the craft's targeting systems onto the engine- Nothing on the plane could actually damage something of that scale, but it kept him going straight and gave him the closing distance. "Okay, you're good to go!"

Sonic swung his arms forward, energy scything forth from his hands, into the huge rocket. Uncontrolled force poured into the white heat of the miniature reactor powering it and just as the first had it shuddered as valuable components were sloughed away. An invisible electrical pulse thrummed out and for a moment Tails lost control as the craft dropped away, and bright contrails of ionising plasma filled the air where they had once been. Another instant and it could no longer sustain it, and exploded, flooding the air around them with debris and smoke.

Taxed beyond their limits, the remaining thrusters couldn't handle it alone. The Death Egg started to lose altitude.

* * *

The bridge was in uproar, Legionnaires running back and forth, as Eggman sat in his chair, staring at the screen, mouth agape.

"No... No! This is impossible!" He punched the console in front of him. "Scramble everything! Blow them out of the sky!"  
"We…" A faceless adjutant stopped to address him. "We don't have any more airborne units to deply, sir!" A moment later and his head exploded, the dictator remotely triggering the shaped charge around his neck. A spurt of blood and the body collapsed, the entire room turning to face the fuming overlander.  
"Then why…" He growled, "are they _still_ out there? Anybody?"

He glared at the faces as sirens blared. "They lost half their people in that last attack; we have their strategist, their soldiers, so how have they recovered? How are two of our engines offline, and most of our defences on fire?" Despite the inferiority of the beings around him, the dictator was going to great lengths to keep his rage in check. As such his words were delivered with an icy, sweeping gaze, having not risen beyond the explosive outburst a moment ago. "The Freedom Fighters don't have the strength to attack so quickly, and they don't even have enough people for an attack like this."

Another one came forward to deliver a report. "Sir-" he faltered, fell silent as the baleful gaze fell upon him, and he felt the full weight of Robotnik's fury bearing down on him. "Some- some of the aircraft bear GUN insignias, sir."  
Now that explained things. Those pitiful beings had gone running to their more numerous human allies to do their dirt work for them when they'd run out of their own people. Sacrificing others in a vain attempt to stop him and get their people back…that was almost admirable. Almost.  
"Very well." He looked out across the room, giving the man a moment to sigh in relief. "Then you will find more ships. You will find more aircraft, you'll make the ones coming to get us move faster, but if they're still in the air, then we're clearly _not using everything!_ " He slammed his hands down on the console hard enough to crack the screen and hurt his wrist. It was dull, he could ignore it.

"My situational analysis suggests that air superiority is an unlikely outcome." The voice was so unexpected he almost forgot he was angry. Already Mecha Sally was making a habit of surprising him.  
He turned to her, a retort forming on his lips, something about the chain of command, to find that she had already snapped to attention, fixing him with an unerring gaze that spoke to him of her loyalty. And his victory; he would humour her. "What do you mean?"

"The legionnaires are correct. The majority of our air forces are currently offline or inoperable. Air superiority is now no longer a viable option. I have a solution. Deep analysis of the handheld device of the AI Nicole has yielded useful information that may be effective in resolving this situation."  
"Go on." Perhaps now was a good time for a field test.  
"I have extracted and repurposed combat and situation software. It will significantly increase the effectiveness of Iron Legion units. I recommend it is installed immediately and used to combat Freedom Fighter forces on the ground."

Robotnik hummed to himself. On one hand, the software she'd found could be corrupted, an electronic attack on his squads to disable him from within, but according to all of her reports, the handheld had remained inactive for the duration of her tests. On the other hand, it could be genuine, and give the Freedom Fighters something new to think about. Well, he didn't have much to lose at the moment.  
"Make it happen; get it in before we hit the ground, and we'll see just how good their tech is when mounted in superior weaponry."


	6. Chapter 5: Rescue

After twenty minutes, and losing speed faster than predicted, the Death Egg crashed into the desert sands, ploughing a meteor-esque trail into the ground. The furrows of sand cast up settled again quickly into new artificial dunes as the Freedom Fighter team swept in towards the ground, the two main planes touching down briefly before the AI's control took over, waiting only long enough for the Mobians to be deposited. Then they were in the air once again, lending support to the GUN forces not suited for ground combat.

Over the sounds of engines and the remaining station thrusters working to keep the place on a stable axis, the five gathered to advance.  
"How's it looking?" Sonic shouted to Nicole, the AI taking command of communication now that Antoine was out of the plane.  
"We've got about forty minutes before our reinforcements and theirs arrive, short window!"  
"Right, well, she's not going to come to us, so we'd best find a way into that thing!" Sonic folded his arms.

"And how exactly do we do that?" Amy piped up.  
Once again, the lynx had things taken care of. "Tails and I will carry you and Antoine. Sonic can run up the outside. Find a hatch and get in."  
"It's practically on its side, so getting around once we're in won't be easy for the non-fliers." Tails mused.  
"We're not splitting up again, we're just going to have to bear with it. If it takes off while we're inside, we'll have to find our own way off." The blue hedgehog added.

He didn't actually have to say it; that was the unwritten contract they'd all signed on this mission – nay, as Freedom Fighters. Getting everyone back alive and safe was priority one; everything else, even the mission usually came first. This was the only exception, because the two were one and the same. As Sonic rocketed away, charging up a sand dune to get a running jump to the side of the carrier, that was the only thing on his mind. Tails and Antoine took hold of each other's wrists, the former taking to the air and flying after Sonic. A faint green glow surrounded Nicole, and she took hold of Amy, floating into the air.

"I've got a visual on a viable entrance. About forty metres to the left of your current heading." She called out to the blue speedster. He turned, angling himself in the direction of the hatch. A ragged scar in the metal flashed by and he understood why she'd picked it; he could see the gap now, half wrenched open by a glancing hit meant for somewhere else. Swaying to the side his hand grabbed at the edge, pivoting him round and into the hole.

" _Bit of a fall when you get inside._ " His voice echoed on the comlink. " _Don't drop until you can see a good landing spot._ "  
"Of course." Nicole nodded. Tails lowered himself and Antoine in next, and she followed them with Amy floating beside her, the hedgehog holding her skirt down despite the low chances of anyone looking.

Apparently the station had managed to tilt almost a full ninety degrees before coming to a halt; the team found themselves in a cavernous space devoid of activity or even much in the way of equipment or decoration, and a cursory inspection revealed why. They had emerged into one of the massive hull-mounted drop-bays, where larger aircraft such as bombers were launched from in order to build up speed quickly. Many said bombers were held in magnetic storage rigs to avoid being shaken free by damage done to the station, but the force of landing had ripped said clamps free of their mountings. The entire bomber squadron lay crushed and torn apart in pieces against one of the walls-turned-floor.

"Well, these things won't be giving our air support any trouble." Sonic tapped a buckled wing with his shoe. "With any luck, they'll all be like this. Even if he does manage to get it back in the air, the thing's barely defendable now."  
"That's the flaw with building a large battle station like this one: It's a fire magnet." Nicole mused. "The moment this thing was airborne, everyone who opposes Eggman probably had their guns trained on it."

"Probably why the bastard wanted to stick it right above us; we'd have the hardest time hitting it." It would have been near-pointless for the dictator to have tried to assault the UF with something like this. Not only did they have the best air force on Mobius, but they also had the resources and distance to prioritise static defence over stealth. They could have long-range missiles trained on the station before it even got the border, while the Acorn empire had to rely more on stealth and misdirection even now.

"Alright, being inside the belly of the beast is one thing." Tails folded his arms. "Does anyone have any idea how to get to wherever Sally is?"  
"I imagine it's probably sign-posted to an extent. Eggman can't expect his legionnaires to know their way around this thing, and by the same merit, he can't have been expecting us to get on board." Nicole noted. "Let's find a lift shaft - that will be our smoothest path."  
"Unless he decides to send the elevator at us." Robotnik liked everything as high-tech as it would come; his elevators wouldn't use cables.

He turned to scan the newly-oriented room, hearing the sound of gunfire before he saw the shooter. Instinct kicked in and he dove to the side, bullets whistling through the air where he had been followed by further salvos as the rest of the team reacted to the sudden attack, seeking shelter and searching for the source.  
Everyone except Sonic. Jinking round the shots his superior physiology kicked in, twisting and picking out a handful of lightly-armoured walkers stationed outside an open hallway, rapid-fire machine guns raking around the Freedom Fighters.

"It would have a side hallway, wouldn't it..." He cursed, running up and along the upturned hangar floor towards the walkers, dodging around the bullets and hurling himself through the door, caving in one of the walker's cockpits with his curled-up body. The machine crumpled and collapsed back, the rest of the automated squad spinning to follow his movements. Ammunition clattered around him and he pushed off from the carcase, springing up along the barrel of another's gun. He met its faceplate foot first and crushed through the casing, erupting from the other side, still in motion.

Even with their manoeuvrability, they weren't fast enough to keep up with him.

Tracer fire whipped across in front of him and he doubled back, shifting back into their blind-spots. Hadn't seen that coming. Rolling up again, he crashed through the drones' spindly legs, leaving them to fall to the ground, helpless. Crushing the cores of each to ensure they couldn't keep firing, he turned back to his allies.

"I don't think they have magnetic feet, so the bots are going to be just as limited as we are! Want me to run ahead?"  
"No!" Nicole called back, more hastily than she'd wanted. "We all stick together; Tails is on point, he's got the best manoeuvrability in here!" The fox's mobility was only part of the reason. She didn't want Sonic leading the group in case they caught a glimpse of Sally and he went chasing off after her on his own, something he might do given a moment of ill thought.

Fortunately, the hedgehog didn't pick up on it and simply checked around, gesturing when he believed that nothing would surprise them.

"So, which way now?" Amy asked. "We've got two options..."

"The one that goes straight down will lead us deeper into the station. The side entrance is more likely to take us around the perimeter." Nicole replied. "So I'm afriad it's going to be another drop."

"At least this one probably won't be as far." Antoine sighed. 'Ow is Tails going to scout if he eez carrying moi?"  
"He's not scouting far. We're going to move corridor by corridor – we keep going further and further in, we'll most likely end up where we need to be. If not and the station takes off again, then we get the proper gravity back and it stops being the main problem."  
She was playing a balancing game here, trying to make sure the team didn't break up without reducing their ability too much.

Tails nodded, and dropped into the hole, hovering down to the bottom and aligning himself with the wall, close enough to peer around it. Spotting nothing, he flew back up, and took a hold of Antoine.

"All clear."

They progressed further in through the newly-unfamiliar scenery. Each step was hampered by the shifted pathways they had to traverse and the defences they encountered. Though the outer rings of the station were crusted with battle damage that swiftly gave way as they passed within towards the core, where many of the mechanisms still survived. Heavy defensive droids kept in storage barred their passage alongside scores of tiny flying drones.

The smaller ones were the greater problem – they could outmanoeuvre the lumbering machines easily, but the hovering guns were far more at home in the air than they were. Firepower was also becoming a problem- Nicole was the only ranged fighter among them, and not only was her body not designed for such a purpose, her beam projectors being underpowered, but she also severely lacked experience.

"If I see another one of those damn things, I'm beating Eggman over the head with it."  
"I think I could say tze same for tze station…"  
"That could be arranged." She'd have been far more at home hacking the station indeed, but for now it would serve no practical purpose. Most of the defences were closed-circuit and operated on an automatic basis without the need for interaction with other systems, and she would hinder as much as help by playing with the thruster controls. No, this operation had to be done the hard way.  
"Any idea how much further it is?" Amy asked.

"When we find the main lift-shaft, we've got a beeline to the control room." Sonic said. "And we're not going to get crushed. Eggman's not going to let his "victory" over me be something as dumb as squishing us with a lift. Only thing that'd stop him from wanting to do it in person would be the prospect of telling Sal to do it instead..."  
"And that'd just help us, right?" It'd bring her straight to them, whether she was there to fight or not. Robotnik loved the chance to flaunt new victims as much as new toys, but he wouldn't just throw her away.

"Yeah, fat chance of that happening." The hedgehog wouldn't trust it either. If there was any trap she would be the most obvious bait for them. They were probably walking into one as it was; that was necessary, just a part of being in the station, but there was no need to make it worse for themselves by falling for the obvious.

"At tze very least, any traps will be likely knocked off-keelter by tze crash. Tze good doctor was probably expecting his fortress to be upright when he confronted us."  
Tails looked around, trying to pre-emptively gauge a reaction. "Is it wrong to hope that he got injured when this thing turned over?"  
"Not really, bud." Sonic shrugged. "Sometimes I find myself hoping that his ejection system locks up and he gets stuck in a mech as it explodes. We all have moments like that. Think we've kinda earned it after all this time."

Nicole kept silent through their banter, her attention elsewhere. She'd spotted a number of the aforementioned traps already, a number of pressure sensors carefully concealed amongst the flooring intended to trip or offset Sonic as he made his way in. Now such things were well out of the way. They'd have delays on them, relayed to actual obstacles further ahead to compensate for the hedgehog's speed, but if they had to make a hasty escape she could turn them to their advantage.  
"Can't be too long now." The fox chimed in, indicating the heavier security doors present to deploy from the ceiling.

"No, I'd wager that the main shaft is just up ahead. The only question is how to get that particular door open." Nicole replied. "No hard points for me to break into."  
"Telekinesis?"  
"Not strong enough to move something like this."  
Sonic rapped his knuckles against it. Pretty tough work. "You bring anything explosive, Tails?"  
It warranted a shake of the head. "I spent all of the time between these operations putting together the hash-job of an airfleet out there."

Sonic stepped away from the door, frowning.

"So what, we stand here and wait for him to send something down here? Or do I shout "Hey Eggman, I'm here, ready for round two?""  
"Depends." Tails furrowed his brow, thinking. It was just a door; there were stress points, load weights, moving parts. It was a big, sealed door, but a door. It was just a question of identifying the weakest points to exploit. "He uses crossbars on these big ones to stop you going through them vertically...that's not going to be a problem." The fox took a few paces forward to come flush with the obstruction, patting along its seams, searching for something. A few moments later he traced two lines straight down, nodding to himself and stepping back. "Hit it as hard as you can right between where I pointed out."

"Alright." He backed up the corridor a few hundred metres, then charged, driving a boost straight into the door, caving the metal in and tearing the door from its mounting. "Knock knock!" The massive agglomeration of metals crashed down around him in its constituent parts. Good estimate; the design was built for the hedgehog to be hitting it from the floor, not at this distorted angle.  
"Nice when you get it right first time."  
"Yeah." Sonic nodded. "We'll be getting into the bits he doesn't want us to reach now. Everything I saw before funnelled me toward the place I fought him. He wanted me to meet him in an arena of his choosing, rather than let me near the bridge."  
"And yet, it's just as poorly defended."  
"Of course it is. Why would he waste time sacrificing form for function in an area he's not expecting us to reach?"

He was right; quite abruptly the scenery shifted, transforming with the door as its border from the Spartan, intelligent design of the corridors to some Greco-Egyptian architecture in polished chrome and crimson. The hallway itself widened slightly in order to accommodate the statues, massive outmoded versions of his combat drones holding up large light globes.

"And now we go from battle station to "monument to Eggman's ego"." Sonic announced. "If you feel like breaking anything, please, go right ahead."  
"I'm not sure whether his self-importance is amusing or tragic."  
"Depends on how you look at it I guess." Nicole chuckled at her own humour, carefully rotating herself to align with the floor. "No, nevermind. It's just as garish from this perspective. I'd start removing the bolts holding them in place, but that'd just give us more to walk over."

THe moment of levity quickly passed, and the five continued toward the bridge.

"So, where actually is the bridge on this thing?" Amy asked.  
"Well, you know how it has Eggman's face?"  
"Yeah?"  
"It's in the nose." It sounded even worse than it probably was. He probably even had a viewing dome right at the tip as well. Well, they could at least be reasonably sure of no further possibly traps, at least not fixed ones. There was the concern of the people they were after, but the doctor would not have put an explosive floor panel where he might be walking. Jumping and climbing over the statues and columns lining the walls, they pressed onwards. For all its grandiosity, the nose of the Death Egg was a simply-laid-out affair, a single corridor with others branching off it, leading to side rooms, with the bridge at its end.

Two side-chambers from the main room, Sonic disappeared, lifted up and away into another room, the tang of ozone and fume trails following him. Everyone else glimpsed a flash of dark blue disappearing with him as Metal Sonic, having lain in wait for his foe, launched his attack anew.

"Damnit, I wasn't expecting that!" Nicole grimaced. "Tails, go after him! Antoine, Amy and I will secure the bridge!"  
"What about splitting up?!"  
"We'll be dead weight against Metal, but everyone on the bridge bar Sally will be altogether squishier!"  
"Right, fair enough!"

Tails flew up into the room, following his friend. He blinked several times, eyes trying to adjust to the gloom. The sparks helped him track the two of them in the unlit chamber, hardened spines shearing against Metal's claws. Evidently Sonic had only been caught slightly by surprise - though he could see the glisten of where blood wet his stomach. The wound wasn't even close to slowing him down, the pair bouncing off the walls as they fought. The fox groaned- he had no idea where to jump in. He reached into his backpack, pawing around for the appropriate weapon, as Sonic rammed into Metal's side. Perhaps he could handle it alone, but it didn't hurt to help.

That left the other three to deal with the bridge, swiftly skirting the hallway yawing beneath them, clambering across beams to step into the large, open command bridge.  
As predicted, it had a viewing dome, but that looked to be the only part that had survived the crash intact. Everything else lay shattered, spewing sparks or crackling fitfully, bashed and battered as the impact had shaken heavy objects free and sent them tumbling.

"Look, down there!" Amy pointed. Sure enough, the majority of the bridge population had fallen away from their seats and stations in the ship's fall, and were now sprawled across the what had been a wall. Only the few legionnaires and robots agile enough to land safely remained upright, clustered around their fallen allies. Between their limbs Robotnik's shape could be discerned, but the rest was lost amidst a tangle of mechanical limbs and random colours. They couldn't pick anything out.

The remaining robots detected their presence as they appeared and for a moment the trio ducked back, caught between the sounds of combat behind and the danger ahead, but nothing happened. For whatever reason, the guards did not move, perhaps obeying some generic safety program in the defence of their master, or lost without direct input. Maybe they too were attempting to calculate the potential difficult in attempting to fight in this environment.

It didn't matter what they were doing; it was a reprieve, and they weren't here for the doctor. They were here for their lost comrades.


	7. Chapter 6: Roadblock

A dart of sharp colour and Nicole was gone, ripped away in front of them too fast to follow with a whiff of electrified air. She managed one plaintive cry before she was slammed into the bulkhead wall, coming to an abrupt stop in a shallow crater, her attacker looming over her, at once familiar and horrifyingly alien. Classic-styled blue with white highlights, all shallow curves and gyro joints, it looked like something out of old sci-fi, refurbished and brought up to specification.

It certainly all looked genuine, from the single bar optic across the head, to the strength of the arm clamping her to the wall, and the gentle fizz of idling thermal wash coming from the gun barrel inches from her face. Presumably it was in place of the other hand, and judging by its size the range wouldn't be all that considerable, but plenty enough to do some serious injury where it was now. Another Sonic variant, built to restrict movement by the looks of it.  
"Control. Priority target incapacitated."

"I tzink we 'ave found tze secret weapon..." Antoine said, drawing his sword.  
"No kidding, but how do we get over there to help her!?"

"Aim lower, Mecha Sonic. Her mind is still of value to the Empire." Sally's warped voice echoed up from below. Antoine looked down toward the windscreen, trying to catch a glimpse of her, when something flashed in his peripheral vision, and Nicole screamed. Whirling, he spotted her still in the robot's claws, a large hole smoking in her midsection, everything below it hanging limp.

"Damn pain synthesis…" Infiltration bodies just weren't built for this. Not for engaging robotic targets, not getting involved in any notable combat for that matter. They were meant for blending in. Still maintaining her grimace of pain a subtle command whispered through her remaining systems, cutting off her tactile sense from the feedback loop.  
"Control. Orders concerning the remaining Freedom Fighters."

Good, they didn't think she was a threat. They even expected some significant part of her was in this body – all good; as long as they focussed on her as the significant target, it was drawing their attention. Maybe she could draw it a little further, if the GUN units could take the strain.  
Selecting the one with the least stable power supply, suffering the most damage, she peeled the aircraft away from its holding action, curling it up along the station's exterior. Most of the flames were out; the repair crews were working faster than she'd expected.  
"Expendable. Secure or destroy."

The robot dropped her and rocketed toward the two organics. She propped herself up against the upturned floor, trying to focus on her aircraft, as the sound of careful, metal footsteps approaching reached her audio sensors. She looked up, spotting Mecha Sally clambering toward her. This could complicate the plan. Admittedly the Robian's body would be more resilient than the rest of the FF, but even then she doubted Sally could survive a direct hit. In most circumstances that would have been okay, against most targets, but she was the reason they were here. Collateral damage wasn't even an option.

"You are damaged, but you shall be repaired and reprogrammed to serve the Empire." The Robian announced, slowly closing the gap between herself and Nicole.  
"I've been asked something like that a few times now, since that whole Iron Nicole thing." The AI replied, disguising the worry in her voice. She could do nothing for the other two, not with this body, even if she did make it up to them, but she could have her shot at Sally.  
"This assessment may be correct. These files have been reviewed and the evidence supports the claim."

But the words rang hollow; even spoken by Sally, Nicole couldn't have tricked herself into thinking she believed it however hard she tried. She knew her friend and knew she wouldn't say something like that in anger. Even programming could be devious if written correctly. She'd made a few viruses of her own like that.

The Robian drew level, one hand reaching down to clasp the lynx's neck, hoisting her upright. "This will only hurt for a moment."  
"Don't worry about it. Hurts you more than me." A minute. Only a minute, that's all they had to hold on for. She was confident she could resist any intrusion Sally mounted, remove herself from the equation if she really needed to, and Tails and Sonic could deal with their opponent. But despite herself, she still couldn't see Antoine and Amy gaining the edge against this new machine.

And it knew it. It knew it very well. Relocating so quickly from its previous job it had been on top of them almost before they saw it, switching objectives and diving into the two with a flurry of low-density bolts. It had stitched a path between them before coming to a halt again, ready to engage.  
"Control has provided multiple paths to objective completion. Termination or surrender are applicable. You have three seconds to announce your collective decision."

"We surrender." Amy didn't even get a say in the matter; clearly outmatched but still preparing to give it a shot, the words had left Antoine's lips and sent her own angry shout back down her throat before it could begin. A few feet from her the coyote knelt slowly, tracked by the silent cannon of their adversary, his blade coming down to rest on the ground between his knees.  
Then a twitch. A glance in her direction, to her hammer, and a sly smirk hidden from Mecha Sonic by his hair. She nodded, not daring to let her face reflect the news, and mirrored her friend's actions.

The robot paused for a second, as if it hadn't expected them to give up so quickly. Then it lurched forward, slowly approaching them, stooping to take the first of their weapons. As he moved to grip the blade of Antoine's sword the hedgehog girl jerked sideways in his peripheral vision. He hesitated a moment, long enough for Amy to wrap her hands back around her hammer and bring it around, striking the side of his face harder than he'd anticipated.

The heavy blow rang loudly, beating him back, optics flickering as they were knocked off-kilter, fingers slipping from the sword. A body was there to catch in as it fell, Antoine's hand slipping cleanly into the guard and striking forward, using his momentum in a powerful forward thrust that scored a deep line along one of the unbalanced robot's joints. A warning blared in its processor and the cannon roared, expending an untargeted shot punching into the floor and kicking up a cloud of rough metal shards. Both Mobians rolled away as best they could, Amy getting back to her feet first and rushing forward to press the attack before the robot could stabilize. Antoine hung back, circling to provide the best position from which to strike at the damaged knee again.

A volley of gunfire cut the hedgehog off as she waded in, shots spattering off the weight of the hammer as Mecha Sonic took to the air once again, cutting his engines abruptly moments later to drop back towards her. Fumbling to react to him she simply couldn't keep up, a shot smacking away the hammer as his fist connected with her stomach. A gasp and the wind was knocked from her, shunting her to the ground. He whirled on Antoine, lunging toward him. The coyote rolled aside, but the machine rebounded off the wall, and launched his fist into the back of his head.

He smacked into the deck, unconscious. Control's orders had prioritised capture alive, and Mecha Sonic obeyed his commands to the letter. If he had overestimated the necessary force and had killed him, it would not be a significant loss. A rush of displaced air warned him of Amy's return, swaying down and to the side and twisting to bring her back within line of sight. His fingers closed around the pole of the hammer, and he swung her aside, slamming her against the wall. She cried out, releasing the hammer involuntarily as she tried to stand back up again.

Before he could capitalise on the situation, everything else happened for him. Sonic, Tails and Metal Sonic's fight, contained until now to one of the side rooms, spilled out into the corridor in a murder of colours and noise. Simultaneously, a top level alert shrieked through his systems, as a collision course with the bridge was detected outside the Death Egg.

Turning, he fired his engines, dashing back onto the bridge and aligning himself along the apparent trajectory, ready to catch the incoming projectile.

"You should keep track of your robot." Nicole had come prepared for a mental invasion, even from Sally, and as she spoke her best intrusion countermeasures had been carefully combatting the advances. She was reasonably sure that she could throw them off if she exerted enough force, but for now she was serving as a distraction quite nicely.  
"Mecha Sonic is capable. Your threat level has already been assessed and marked as no longer sufficient."  
"Well, I have to thank you..." Nicole shifted herself with her arms. "I was worried that, since you have Sally's brain and memories, you might actually be an intelligent and dangerous opponent. However, your ignorance has proven something to me: You're just like all the others: A sloppily-written shell program controlling someone else's body. If you were Sally, you'd know that this is the first time I've had a body in eighteen years, and I've torn through tougher programs than you. This ends here."

She had three seconds. For a computer, that was a very long time. For a computer with one very prominent advantage, it was all the time she could ever need. Gathering her collective psychic potential she lunged, separating oh so briefly from her physical form as she shot forward towards Sally's mind. No acting according to any code book or operational parameters her consciousness raced past the Robian's will without effort, sweeping in to hit the defensive programs head on.

And then something hit back.

The surprise of finding anything beyond the meagre standard firewalls stunned her for a moment, and then her vision filled with something, all claws and teeth, blazing crimson. It snapped at her, narrowly missing a chance to take a chunk out of her.

She had encountered mental constructs before, but never outside of someone's inner mind. As the creature passed her, she got a better look at it- Crimson metal scales lining a serpentine body, four stubby legs ending in dextrous talons, and a head laden with horns and teeth, yet possessing surprisingly Mobian eyes.

[Back.]  
The word imprinted itself on her mind rather forcefully, eschewing conventional conversation in favour of a blunt iteration of its intention.  
[Leave. Vacate. Run. Alternative. Destruction. Deconstruction.]  
Well, it didn't leave much to the imagination. Leave or be destroyed, in the most distilled form it could think of.

She tensed for a moment, hands clenched tightly. Her claws dug into her palm - if she were organic, she'd be bleeding.

 _This thing controlling Sally wants me alive. It's not going to let that program do anything to me._  
It seemed determined to prove her wrong. It struck faster than her cycles could keep up with, uncoiling in a whipcord strike to turn all of its potential energy into a single, lethal lunge, the lynx driving herself from its path nanoseconds before contact could be made. Only augmented speed of thought saved her from the hit. _Still, it's in my way._

She turned, racing toward the monstrous program, a glittering green lance appearing in her hand. It turned, diving back for another pass, forcing her to jink away from its jaws again. It was keeping her off-balance, striking before she could get her aim in. At this speed, she couldn't even tell if it was attempting to be fatal or not.

Its tail snagged her as it darted by, flicking across her weapon and smacking her away with it, crumpling against the metaphysical construct of the half-world they fought in. It twisted, spiralling toward her again. She returned the attack, diving straight at the program, curling inside its spinning body and driving her lance into its stomach. She held her position, letting the creature's own momentum split its underside open.

It writhed and shimmered against the attack, but instead of retreating as per prediction it simply dropped, turning its weight and her commitment to the strike into one big rolling barrier, crushing the lynx into the ground beneath her own weapon. It rose away from her, looping around to deliver another attack, as she shakily rose to her feet, using the lance to steady herself.

The dragon roared, surging toward her. Nicole's attack had dealt severe damage to it - its underside split open from the middle of its belly to approximately halfway down its tail - but being a simple defensive program it lacked the ability to feel pain, nor was such damage especially debilitating.

"You're not going to stop, are you?" She asked in casual rhetoric, gauging it for a second time. As simple as it was, that gave it so little it had to cope with. Without pain it could continue to act at full strength within the digital world, and without morality it would neither fear termination nor have any concerns other than ensuring hers. That said, it was sophisticated enough to confront her when she wasn't entirely resting within the electronic plane.

She jumped back from it as it tried to engulf her in its jaws. It twisted, head turning over as the mouth clamped shut, biting empty space. Seizing a chance, she rammed her lance into its upturned face, directly between its eyes. It fell limp, and crashed to the ground, chunks of it already disappearing before it had finished settling.

Nicole took a moment to recompose herself - she'd need to have all of her faculties in perfect order to go further. She was just about to pick up her weapon and take off once more, when something pierced her back, and tore out through her stomach. She caught a glimpse of a long black spike, only an instant before she was thrown violently back into the real world, into the damaged body with which she had little control. Just in time to see her ship, set on its collision course for what seemed like so long, explode in through the main viewing screen as a fireball aimed at the ring of guarded Combots.

A steely blue blur surged into the path of the plane, colliding with it as a shield formed around its body. The aircraft exploded into a conflagration of metal and kerosene, melting several of the robots and shredding the bridge in with a hail of debris, fanned out in a cone around Mecha Sonic's shimmering form, skidding back along the decking. He'd underestimated the size of the incoming attack, a guess which had cost him some damage, a number of shrapnel fragments embedded in his outer shell, maybe enough to slow him down. Nicole tensed - the robot might've been damaged, but it had managed to succeed in protecting its creator, and it was still in far better condition than her - trapped with Sally, barely able to move, with the looming threat of hacking hanging over her.

This mission was a loss already; that much she could tell. Amy and Antoine, though they had the will, just didn't have the means to contend on this kind of level with the threat they faced. Two artificial Sonic variants, Sally and the remaining contents of the Death Egg were just more than they could handle right now. She still had their comms. They needed to leave.  
 _"_ _Haul out!"_ She had to shout to be heard over the fighting, even to their ears alone. _"_ _Get Amy and Antoine off the station!"_

"We're a little busy right now!" Tails grunted, ducking under a swing of Metal Sonic's claws. "And what about you?"  
 _"I'm going to jump into one of the plane computers. This body can barely move and my telekinesis is being jammed by something. If I stay in it any longer, they're going to try and reprogram me."_  
"Holy- Are you alright?"  
 _"I'll live. Just get out of there asap!"_

Easier said than done. Having joined the fight a few moments behind Sonic, Tails had spent more time at the back, observing. The whole time Metal had been fighting defensively – other than his opening gambit and the occasional attack of opportunity, he'd held back, focussing on staying alive. It had made him significantly harder to actually stop, if not a genuinely tough opponent. Evidently a stalling action now Mecha Sonic was active, or on the scene. Those restraints had fallen away.

He reached into his pocket-space, rooting around for something that could end the fight quickly. Something with a high energy charge or an explosive could end it quickly if loaded into the void in his chest. It was just a matter of getting the shot off, and not hitting Sonic. He brushed against something, felt its energy signature, and frowned.

A ring emerged, the golden loop crested by a faint dissolve of dark purple. A fusion ring, an old, defunct experiment and one of a few he'd held onto precisely because they were so volatile and explosive. That'd do nicely. Revving up his namesakes, he rushed toward the two combatants.

"Sonic, watch out!" For the hedgehog, getting out the way wasn't hard. The conservative combat had ultimately done the robot few personal favours, earning him scores and tears along his carapace as he'd taken glancing hits during the fight. They were enough to slow him down, skew his movements. Still, he snagged the hedgehog's arm as he darted back, wrenching hard in an attempt to dislocate the limb. Sonic barked in pain as bones jarred and muscle bruised, tipping forward towards the floor and driving one foot back in response, delivering a blow of his own to the robot's offending thin arm buckled, internals damaged, as its hand released Sonic's involuntarily, allowing Tails a clearer path.

Swerving around to stay in front of the metal hedgehog, he shoved the ring into the turbine, kicking off from it and grabbing his friend, before dropping back through the doorway to the tune of exploding engine. Pieces of cobalt and scorched metal dropped past them as they landed once again, catching sight of the two fallen regulars.  
"What the…"  
"That." Tails pointed, indicating Mecha Sonic, rising from his previous actions, searching the surrounding area. "We have to get these two and go, Sonic."

"Yeah…I heard." And once again, he was being asked to leave. Only this time, it was worse. They had come to get Sally back, and it didn't look like that was happening, but he had to get the other two out. "Nicole, where do you want us?" And like that, the fight ran out of him, lifting Antoine up onto one shoulder.  
Tails mirrored his actions with Amy, slinging the hammer up over the other shoulder. He wouldn't be able to fly so long on his own, but if Nicole swung round at the right time he wouldn't need to.

" _At the moment, we're basically at ground level. Get through the bridge quickly and out through the hole one of my craft provided. There's a heavier robot copy of you in here, and it's a lot tougher than its little brother. Put a hole in my torso that's crippled this body._ "  
"And Sal...?"  
" _I... I couldn't get in. Something blocked me. We need a new strategy. Sorry, Sonic. Believe me I tried._ "


	8. Chapter 7: Re-Evaluation

Nicole held on as long as she safely could, drawing Sally's attention until the moment Sonic and Tails leapt free of the Death Egg, each one carrying the dazed body of a friend. As they cleared the ruined room the AI leapt with them, sweeping from her body into the chassis of the most advanced aircraft she had found. Corrosive data strings tore through the auto-body's drives, burning out any information that may have been stored there. It wasn't exactly a great loss – any useful information she'd gathered, of which there was little, came with her into the plane that had shadowed the suicide run, and the rest was simply destroyed, fragmenting into loose ends. It would give Robotnik a few red herrings to chase, trying to piece together what was left.

Seeing was an altogether disorienting experience in the the aircraft- She had to project her sight through the plane's radar, scanning her surroundings as she swept lower, bringing herself as close to her friends as she safely could.

Mecha Sally watched them from the bridge, her fingers clenching around a broken piece of framework in frustration, as she looked over her shoulder at the azure robot.  
"This is a loss." She mused, flatly. "The Death Egg is crippled, and all three of our superiors have been incapacitated."

Snively and Lien-Da had been allowed up to the bridge once Eggman was certain that they had not taken Mecha Sally into their own service, and he had completed Mecha Sonic to watch his back. However, neither of them had been seated, let alone strapped in, when the station had crashed, and had lost consciousness during the crash.

"Take some surviving robots and try and salvage a shuttle. We will pull out and return to Megapolis. We will need to acquire a vehicle which can lift the station into an upright position before we can relaunch."  
It was a moment before Mecha Sonic responded. "I can find no records of vessels or machinery with the required engine power to significantly affect the Death Egg's rotation."  
"In our absence repairs with be directed to reinforcing compromised structural integrity and damaged thrusters. The station will provide partial thrust. We will require significantly less power."

They would need to stop other powers destroying the station before they returned, but to effectively do that they would need to rob it of its defenders. She amended her previous order. "As soon as we are away, all other fighters will disperse into security patterns. Enemy forces will attempt to locate Robotnik in fleeing formations. When we return, we will be able to retake the station from occupying forces."

"Roger that." Mecha Sonic nodded, turning away. It looked back over its shoulder at her. "Did the lynx get anywhere into your files?"  
"Negatory. She did not get any deeper than the surface."

It nodded again, then stalked out of the room, as she turned her attention to her unconscious allies. Stepping over to them, she began to shift Eggman into a seated position, propping him up against the upturned floor. A lack of seatbelts had not been kind – one arm was broken, a compound fracture, accompanied by numerous theoretical stress cracks and a concussion. He would be incapable of managing their forces and the recovery effort, nor would Lien Da or Snively. Now until such a time as they could be judged fit for service, she would be the acting authority.

Very well.

* * *

GUN's entire headquarters had been on-edge since the Death Egg lifted off from Megapolis, all hands rushing to prepare for any full-scale assault. Mobilizing the squadron that had attacked the statin after the Republic of Acorn's plea was a small matter - most of the air force was already prepared to scramble.

Tensions had been relieved when the enormous station crashed into the desert, until a second message had been sent from their nearest allies.  
 **[Mission failure. Though the Death Egg is crippled, Sally Acorn, Bunnie Rabbot and Rotor Walrus remain captured or missing. Our forces weren't sufficient to retrieve them.]**  
Then, further compounded by the reports of their own soldiers, as all of their remaining targets broke from the fight, reforming into new patterns and streaking out away from their base at maximum speed.

It seemed that Robotnik and his forces were simply abandoning the Death Egg, something the dictator would not do willingly. They were missing something, a factor which they were quick to try and remedy. Engineering teams followed vanguard squads into the station, mapping the layout and attempting to get readings on weapon and power systems. They didn't want the reactor going critical and wiping out their air force, many aircraft holding back in a patrol pattern until it was confirmed as stable. The search still continued for traps.

"I don't like this..." Shadow the Hedgehog grumbled, watching the information flash up on a screen in Team Dark's quarters. He was slumped on the couch, arms folded, his characteristic frown on his features. "It just doesn't add up."

"I understand that the Princess got roboticized, but... Surely she can't be that powerful, right?" Rouge completed the train of thought, leaning against a wall. "What could've driven them off?"  
"If I remember correctly…losing Bunnie, Rotor and Sally does leave the team underpowered, but they'd still have Sonic and Tails. They're not pushovers."  
"Hmm…yeah, but who else do they have? They're not exactly brimming with adepts, you know." The bat shrugged. Everything had been going so well, though. The station had crashed, they'd gotten in untouched, but then they'd run. "There's gotta be something else."

"Perhaps a new weapon." Omega rumbled. "Or the weaker members may have sustained injuries that forced the stronger ones to retreat to preserve them."  
"So the machine nut could be busting out even more shiny toys? You'd think he'd have a new tune by now. Want me to go poke around with the FF, see what I can pick up on?" Though she was now part of an organised team in a government military, Rouge hadn't had the chance to lose her skills. There was always some reason for her to sneak in somewhere.

"No need." Unfolding his arms and propelling himself off the seat to the screens, the hedgehog rolled back through the information, picking out bits to examine more closely. "The army is going to be focussed on controlling the Death Egg, and if the Freedom Fighters have managed to lose two fights in a row, HQ will want an appraisal from enemy lines."  
"We are most likely to be requested. It will require infiltration. Breaking & entering. Sabotage." Omega's modular, artificial body clanked and whirred, punctuating his words as he ran through pre-combat checks.

"Exactly." Shadow nodded.  
"I'd rather not go into this without all the information. What condition were the higher-ups in? Did they have a chance to make contact with her highness, or is her Robian form still an unknown? Did they see any of these supposed new weapons?" Rouge sighed, walking over to join the hedgehog at the screens.  
"The only thing in the report is that they failed and their forces weren't enough..."  
"They have to know more than that!"  
"If we're going to find it, it will be by calling them. We don't have time to waste on travelling to New Mobotropolis and sneaking in to get something they'll gladly tell us over the phone." The black hedgehog groaned. "Besides, we're already not their favourite people after that incident with the Sol Emerald."

"Well, they've got to get over it sometime." Leaning across him the bat lady seized the controls, dialling up a link to Freedom HQ despite his half-hearted objection.  
"We should wait for an official order, you know. That at least gives us a warrant we can show them when we ask what the problem is."  
"Come on Shadow, we all know they're gonna ask us. Might as well get the ball rolling." She shrugged away his concern without really looking, drumming her hands idly against her hips as she waited for someone to pick up the signal.

" _Freedom HQ, Nicole the Lynx speaking._ " The lynx's voice crackled slightly through the speakers. " _To what do we owe the pleasure?_ "  
"Rouge here, we wanted to give you guys a hand." She replied. "Call it an apology for last time."  
" _At this juncture, we need all the help we can get. Antoine and Amy were injured by Eggman's new robot, and Sonic and Tails are exhausted._ "  
"What happened out there?" Shadow cut in. "It looked like everything was going well, and then suddenly, you were pulling out."

" _They have a new robot copy of Sonic. It's taller, about human-sized, and much stronger. It only vaguely looks like him, really, but either way, it quickly put a hole in the temporary body I was using, and took down half the team. Then it tanked a plane that I tried to ram Eggman with._ "  
"You threw a plane at him?"  
" _I was getting a little desperate at that point..._ "  
"I approve." Omega cut in.  
" _Uh... thank you?_ " The lynx replied, more than a little bewildered. " _In any case, I attempted to get into Sally's head and free her from the mind control, but I couldn't even get below the surface. Something stabbed me in the back, and threw me out..._ "  
"Sounds like you've been through a lot... But we can go in and clean up, if you like." Rouge suggested.  
" _That would be appreciated. We will try to join you as quickly as we can._ "

"Before we do that, though, can you tell us everything you know about what's in there? What can Sally do with her new body, what can this new robot do besides beat down your non-Adepts, and what happened to Eggman himself?"  
 _"_ _I wish I had more for you, but we don't know much beyond what I've said already. The new robot has a cannon on one arm and it can move fast, but beyond that I don't know it's capabilities. It took down Amy and Antoine, like I said, but they weren't prepared for something like that. They're just not suited to handling it."_  
"What about Sally and moustache wax?"

There was a moment's pause as Nicole got the joke. _"_ _We don't know about Robotnik; none of us got a clear look at him. Sally though…at the moment her body can't do much. Standard tech Robian more or less, but whatever is in her head isn't standard. There's some heavily-modified code going on in there, and I didn't get far enough to examine it in enough detail. It's more intelligent than we're used to, I know that much."_  
It really wasn't much for them. Two trips then – first to stop by on the Death Egg and meet up with the squads deployed there, then on to the outskirts of Robotnik's empire, to see if they could tap into an information node.

" _We've been monitoring the station for a while now. They seem to be preparing to leave, and while there have been shuttles arriving and leaving, none of them has been Eggman's personal one, and Sally's signal is still transmitting from the wreck itself. It seems likely that evacuating the staff is taking some time. If possible, it might be worth running in, grabbing her, and using Chaos Control to bring her back here._ "

"We'll see what we can do." Rouge nodded. "See you shortly."  
The static died with the link, leaving the three in silence for a moment. They didn't really expect his to be just a simple smash and grab – if previous missions were anything to go on, a job that went according to plan would be a sign of the apocalypse.  
Omega broke the silence, tromping forward to the console. "I will wait for the order to assist to be received. You two should acquire transportation."  
"And you're volunteering why, exactly?" Shadow cast him a suspicious glance.  
"If damage inflicted is official, I am not required to justify my actions in the mission report."

The two organics glanced at each other, then turned to leave.

"Let's go and get one of the Emeralds." Shadow decided. "It'll be faster than taking a jet."  
"Will they let us?"  
"Probably."  
"And if they don't?"  
"We wait for Tower to give the order to go the Death Egg, and then pull rank."  
"Fair enough."

Their position did come with a number of perks like that. As one of GUN's elite teams, Teak Dark was expected to carry itself with a certain amount of professionalism, something easily done when all of the rank and file just anticipated it from them. Unless they were dealing with someone ranked above them, the squad's reign was freer than it technically should have been, many of the lesser ranks jumping to carry out commands. The duo made their way from their quarters down to a vault constructed specifically to contain Chaos Emeralds. With the stones being in such high-demand, Shadow couldn't help but feel that designing it to house all seven was a little over-ambitious, especially considering that they didn't even have a full set on Mobius Prime yet.

Though, it was this mindset that was signature of GUN. If they weren't so thorough, so careful to track any possible chance of collecting another emerald, they wouldn't have ended up at odds with the Freedom Fighters before. They probably saw this as a chance to recover the emerald in the core of the Death Egg.

Two guards stood outside the vault, armed with rather large cannons. Both saluted as Shadow and Rouge approached. The corridor was suitably dim and imposing, double doors stamped with numerous item numbers and names, along with the department designation itself.

"Agent Rouge, Agent Shadow, to what do we owe the pleasure?"  
"We need to borrow one of the Emeralds. We're warping to the Death Egg to clean up after the strike force and the Freedom Fighters crashed it." The bat explained.  
"It's a little too far to travel unaided, so I'll need a boost." They both knew how it was played nowadays. Shadow kept them going in the right direction, Rouge kept everyone in the way off-guard.

"And we get to sit around here twiddling our thumbs eh?" One of the faceless guards patted his weapon. They looked impressive, but rarely saw use.  
Rouge gave him a sympathetic look. "That's the way the hand's been played, boys. But hey, don't worry; when the tech department get their mitts on all the stuff the madman left around, you'll be seeing some interesting things coming through here."  
"Considering that one of our objectives is a Robian, and there could easily be more victims among the doctor's army, let alone Legionnaires, I'd prefer to keep weapons like those away from this particular op." Shadow grunted.

"Fine fine, take one. Just be sure to bring it back." The shorter of the two men sighed.  
"Of course. With any luck, we'll have another one to add to the collection too." Rouge grinned. "We're good friends, right? Always bringing back souvenirs."  
The taller of the two humans chuckled an agreement as he swiped a card against a scanner built into one wall, the machine clicking for a moment as it processed the information until a cheery beep confirmed their entry.

Within the vault sat a small table with a curved glass lid over it, with seven indents shaped to hold the fist-sized stones. Only two of them were occupied, holding the green and red Emeralds. The lid retracted, allowing them access to the ancient artefacts. Shadow's hand when instinctively to the green one, plucking it from the stand and turning it over in his palm.

"Old faithful?" One of the bat's many running jokes.  
"Hasn't done wrong thus far." The hedgehog delivered his retort calmly. "We'll retrieve the other emerald and make sure nothing's going to explode without it there, then hand it over to an evac team on-site. We can just go straight on to the empire outskirts."  
"And what about the upper echelon? If we're quick, we might be able to snag Eggman and the rest of his staff. If we arrest them, then that will be a major turning point in the war!"

"Not if this new Sonic is as tough as they say. Like we said, the Freedom Fighter's aren't pushovers. We secure the emerald first, get it out, then prepare to move on to the outskirts. If that just happens to take us through Robotnik and his cohorts, it'll be a happy coincidence." Shadow smirks into the emerald. "One step at a time, Rouge."

"I think you with at least one Chaos Emerald and Omega with his full arsenal are probably on a whole separate level to Amy and Antoine, but whatever." She shrugged. "Let's find our metal friend and get going."  
"Keep in mind that we have to be guarding you too."  
"You-" There was a flash of anger in her eyes, and then she got it. "You know, you need to get a better tone if you're going to start making jokes like that. It was a joke, right?" The bat lady shot him a sideways glance as they turned to leave.

He returned the glance and then started out of the room. "I'll tell you later."  
"Damnit Shadow!"

* * *

Aboard the crashed Death Egg, Mecha Sally still stood in the remains of the bridge, perched on an upturned console, as she watched several drones carefully lift up the injured organics and place them on stretchers.

"Shouldn't the Legionnaires at least have woken up by now?" Mecha Sonic rumbled, lowering himself down from the door, the light blue Chaos Emerald clenched firmly in his grip. "Your kind are supposed to be tougher than humans."

"They are not my kind anymore. Owing to the injuries sustained, I elected to keep them asleep until we are away from here. Added, my files indicate that, were Grandmaster Lien-Da to awaken, she could attempt a coup. I must keep the Empire's best interests at core, and right now, survival is the highest priority. Finally, it will allow me to put the software update I have written to use. It takes longer to install in cyborgs than it does in you or any of the other machines."

The explanation seemed satisfactory. "And the incoming enemy forces?"  
"They will not track the correct shuttle when we launch. Until then, ensure that breached forces do not reach us. Maximum force authorised."


	9. Chapter 8: Backup

Watching her fellow machines carefully remove their masters, Mecha Sally's optics narrowed. Her optics drifted to the Emerald clutched tight within her digits. There were not many things the emerald would react to.

"Mecha Sonic, the Emerald's energy is rising. One of it's kin is nearby. Take this one, and investigate." She commanded, handing the stone back to the cobalt droid. "Remain in contact at all times. I shall hurry the evacuation here."

"By your command." The presence of another emerald only meant adepts, unless their adversaries had taken to just carrying them into battle, regardless of whether they could actually be used. No, few were that stupid, and they didn't have access to such equipment. No, they'd sent adepts, and with the Freedom Fighters running and GUN swarming in, there were only a few possibilities. No matter; Mecha Sonic would be capable, though it wouldn't hurt to lend a hand.

Wordlessly a command echoed throughout the injured station, systems still online responding as every non-essential mechanism was brought down, redirecting power through the command controls and the environmental systems. With the exceptions of the main thoroughfares as designated by Robotnik the station lacked too much internal security, and much of what existed in any case no longer functioned. She still had the blast doors, the security panels, the oxygen controls. If anyone wished to delay her, she would make it inconvenient for them. If everything went to plan, however, Mecha Sonic would stop the intruders from ever reaching the station.

The azure robot launched out of the hole in the Death Egg's nose, crashing into the sand below. His engines fired, as he skimmed over the dunes toward the energy reading. His visor-shaped optic switched to scanning mode, searching for any sign of his targets, picking out multiple random ferals, the temporary GUN emplacement, and finally, three small figures trudging toward it.

"Contact." He sent the message via a direct neural link, rather than speaking them. "Three new hostiles, near the GUN camp. Subjects identified as GUN Agent: Shadow the Hedgehog, GUN Agent: Rouge the Bat, and Traitor Unit: E-123 Omega. Orders?"

" _Bring them in. They will join the collective._ "  
"And the robot?"  
" _Enlighten it._ " Following her commands came the exact mission directives and parameters. Local support within the Death Egg, little to none outside the shell, ensure evacuation was complete before withdrawing became an option. He would have to keep the fighting inside then. It would reduce his safety buffer, allowing them to get this close, but if the support available was sufficient it would counterbalance itself in his favour.

Incapacitating the targets long enough to contain them…that posed a higher degree of difficulty, but there were only three of them, and within these limits he would not suffer the same problems encountered in trying to subdue the Freedom Fighters. The robot found his place in one of the many outer antechambers, its doors jammed open by sand after the crash.

He kept low, preparing the cannon in his right arm, warming it up as he slowly took aim at the group. The shot released, streaking over the sand toward them, the orange-red orb elongating into a beam as it left the barrel, knifing down along its trajectory. Though they could not have seen it coming in time they did not have to, the bulky, cumbersome Omega unit launching itself into the path of the beam, the intense heat scarring down the armour and charring away paint.

Perhaps Mecha Sonic would have been disappointed if such a thing were possible, that his preliminary strike had not hit a meaningful target. Set on that frequency it would have easy rent flesh, but the heavy plating had shrugged away the strike. Still, it served a secondary purpose. They knew where he was, and they would come for him, long-range suppressive fire tracing across the framework around him from the traitor's Gatling cannon in retaliation. Clenching the Emerald in his other hand, he drew its energy into himself, charging systems and weapons, as he took aim a second time, a green bolt searing from the barrel and roaring off on an intercept trajectory once again.

Once again they fell short of their mark as the trio launched skyward, on wings and jetpacks, his vision leaving them for a moment, to observe the effects of his attack the, shot simply plunging into the sand without ceremony. A moment later the ground bulged, sank and exploded, showering a large area with an impromptu sandstorm. His visor lit up in blue, switching to a scanning mode, picking out the three shapes in the gale of sand, the two organics doing their best to shield their eyes. His systems locked onto Shadow, immediately targeting the greatest threat.

With Omega's suppressive fire temporarily suppressed the storm he fired again, a hail of smaller, low-frequency pulses puffing into the dust, and with something approaching satisfaction he watched as the first struck home, its actual damage not evident through the obscure conditions. Despite the lack of power, it still knocked the airborne hedgehog off-course. The bat whirled, following her friend's path.

"Engaged. Syncing to allow performance review."  
" _Acknowledged._ " Rising back to standing Mecha Sonic began to move closer to the intruders, still tracking Omega's signal riding towards him undeterred. Shadow still posed the greatest threat, should he get within range, but the traitor's arsenal could not be ignored, and it would be far more difficult to deter when it felt no pain.

Deciding to press the attack before the duo could recover, he boosted his engines to their maximum, closing the gap in seconds. Punching through the sand, he lashed out at the hedgehog and bat, a wild, directionless sweep to keep them off-balance. Both aware of his sudden presence they split apart once again and he twisted after the hedgehog, trying to keep his opponent off-balance as a great wash of heat rolled over him. The air cut beneath his thrusters and he pitched down into the ground for a moment, rolling back into the air, shedding shrapnel and ash.

Rockets. In these conditions Omega posed a greater threat – though an obsolete model he still had a full sensor suite, something organics lacked. Mecha Sonic needed to either switch his target, or switch his environment.

Turning, he launched toward the larger robot, jinking to avoid a hail of bullets, slugs, and lasers released from the gunner-series, aiming for the joint between its shoulder and torso. Shots scraped and glanced from his chassis as the range closed, flakes of paint joining the settling storm. His weapon arm thrust forward to join the lethal light-show, firing over and over to counter the ordnance levelled at him.

In this bubble of atmospheric distortion energy weaponry largely burned away sand, reducing its effectiveness when it struck, but he wasn't aiming to injure Omega with it. He just needed it to get in close. Heavy in the air and holding still to stabilise weaponry the gunner couldn't avoid the collision, Mecha Sonic slamming in his torso, tipping him back and forcing him towards the ground. The cobalt machine didn't let him fall. He halted, angled himself down, and plunged down onto the larger robot. His torso curled up, spines forming a bladed shell around him at the last second, tearing into his armour.

The shift in resistance told him what he needed to know as the armour slid apart beneath his attack, wires fraying and snapping when he snagged against the shielding, throwing their combined balance off. Omega spun in the air, weapons filing themselves away, clawed hands re-emerging to latch against his aggressor, tearing violently; he cared little for his own state of repair, as long as he got this thing out of his torso.

Before Mecha Sonic knew fully what was happening he came free, trailing shreds of metal, but only had moments to realise his situation before sand was at his back and the gunner series' full weight was hammered against him, the larger robot pile driving them into the ground.

"Keep moving. I will detain the aggressor."  
"Don't bother, we can handle him. He won't take long to dismantle at this rate."  
Warping out of the larger robot's grip, Mecha Sonic stood, taking stock of his opponents once more. The sandstorm had died now, leaving him with no significant visibility advantage over them. GUN would join in given any time too.

" _The flaws in my design are beginning to show. I am not powerful enough."_ He needed support and renewed objectives. This wasn't working.  
 _"It is to be expected. Our Master built you to tire Sonic out, not defeat him, just as he does with all of his creations."  
"Orders?"  
"Fight as hard as you can. If you are overwhelmed, play dead or withdraw to within the station. Their superior firepower will be less of an advantage when they're in a tight space. The evacuation is almost complete; if you cannot detain them, withdraw when I give the word."  
"Confirmed."_

The glimmers of a new strategy crossed his processor - hitting the two stronger members of the team had caused little progress- he was not designed to win a war of attrition. However, the encounter with the Freedom Fighters had taught him that these teams had a tendency to break ranks when their weaker members were injured. Turning, he locked onto Rouge, snapping away a handful of rapid shots. Their angle forced her down towards the ground, pivoting and twisting to avoid each subsequent pulse of energy.

The moment her shoes touched the sand Mecha Sonic burst forward, thundering across the space between them. She turned to see his fist spinning round through the air in a terrifying haymaker, and she blurred away. The robot had little time to ponder how she'd evaded a strike meant to stun or even kill as something else wrapped itself around his gun arm, lifting him from his course and striking him hard again into the sand. The weapon discharged and his aggressor let go, the cobalt machine rolling to standing once more, face to face with Shadow as Rouge completed her imperfect backflip behind him, the hedgehog striking out again and again, keeping him on the back foot.

This wasn't working, even now. Rouge was still the most viable target given her relative strength, but out here she was too agile, with both the air and the ground to manoeuvre on. Her skillset made it no easier, given her former occupation.

"Requesting support." Pitching the command out through his speakers as he roared back into the air, bee-lining for the first open hangar. They would want to kill him before reinforcements could appear. Immediately, a missile lock warning flashed across his visor, as three rockets slashed toward him. Rolling onto his back, he shredded the nearest one with cannon fire, the other two blasted apart by twin bolts of Chaos. Well, they certainly weren't interested in letting him go.

Bolts of their own whizzed past him as he flew, their accuracy undimmed as they took flight behind him, determined to keep pace. Good, keep them stuck on him and they wouldn't think to follow Sally.

" _Fly lower. Kick up a dust trail to give yourself some cover._ She commanded. He pitched down, throwing up a cloud of sand in his wake, partially obscuring himself from view. Now, only one of them could see him. Tracer fire whipped through the dust around him as they followed, driving a trail of gunfire back towards the listing station. As he got close return fire began to fall from the Death Egg, the remnants of the security forces pumping a thin but steady hail of ammunition down onto the trio in pursuit.

Launching into one of the many wounds that now dotted the station, he turned, staring down at his pursuers.

"Are you ready to leave?"  
" _Almost. In the time you have been dealing with them, I have been considering alternate solutions. It is safe for you to withdraw. It is clear your current design is insufficient; evade and rendezvous at the coordinates we transmit."_  
"Confirmed. Disengaging."

He lingered a moment, noting the condition of his opponents and then turned, thrusting away into the structure once again. He would not be returning to the command room, but to another exit, as so to leave undetected.

Shadow was first into the chamber behind him, landing with a roll, coming back to standing to sweep the room for danger, hands outstretched, crackling with energy.

"It appears to have fled." He grunted. "I can't sense his Chaos Energy... Omega, give a scan in case he knows how to suppress it."  
"Affirmative." The robot landed beside him, Rouge hovering nearby. "No sign. Coward fake Sonic has retreated!"  
"Then we head for the command deck, and assume a trap. Nothing will leave the vicinity of the station without us being aware of it."  
"This place isn't exactly in good nick, Shadow." To illustrate her point the bat hopped down to the ground a few meters ahead, tapping against a pile of metal that may or may not have been an unmanned fighter. "Chances say this place isn't going to have any traps, or if it does, any good ones, or much remaining security."

"Then anything we run into shouldn't pose much of a threat, should it? Even so, treat it as hostile. No good to be caught flat-footed by something we should be able to handle."  
"I think the blue boy and his friends have probably done the damage for us." Rouge mused, launching into the air again. "Still, pays to be cautious."  
"Indeed."  
"I will take point."  
"I appreciate the sentiment, Omega, but you're hardly good for scouting." The bat smiled, flying off ahead.

She wasn't particularly concerned about getting jumped, even being the least combat-capable of the three. Enough tombs and death traps had been left in her wake for a sixth sense for traps and subterfuge to develop. She didn't tend to be far wrong just going on gut instinct, and if that wasn't enough the debris and structural damage spelled it out equally clearly. Their only major concern would be areas genuinely unstable enough to give out, something with which she was quite accustomed and the best-suited to handle.

Peering around a corner, she floated silently along it, watching for any remaining weapons.

"Bridge is this way, hangar the other. Think we can catch them in transit?"  
" _Depends on when they started moving._ " Shadow grunted back. " _If they were already going when we arrived, then we'd best run for the hangar. Otherwise, we might have a chance to catch them._ "  
"I haven't got time to crack the security feed, but I haven't exactly seen anyone. Best to play it safe." She said. "Well, as safe as a straight-up path through a crashed battle station can be."

They could agree on that, and the lack of resistance other than Mecha Sonic had been picking at Shadow's nerve. If this was still being considered a viable defensive location, Robotnik would be an idiot but the place would still be defended. If they had decided to bug out, on the other hand, they'd have taken everything that wasn't nailed down and still worked.

"Any reason you can fathom for the state of this thing?" He asked, as he and Omega caught up.  
"I'm afraid not... I wish I knew... And worse, when I said "straight up", I meant it."  
"Vertical all the way to the hangar?"  
"Yup. Not like it's actually gonna be an issue for us, but I really don't like the idea of running into anything that way."  
"Damn. And that's assuming it's not collapsed further up." If there were any major obstructions, they'd have to go around them. While he and Omega likely packed the ordnance to break through, it wouldn't be safe to risk further collapse.

"Well, I don't know about you two, but it didn't look all that bad from the outside, current situation considered of course." The bat shrugged. "It's been literally fucked sideways and the outside hasn't caved in yet. Guessing most of it'll be okay as long as we stick to the main halls." Side corridors were always asking for trouble. Smaller, easier to set up an ambush or a bottleneck, more likely to collapse and simple to sabotage.

"Then let's make a stab at it." Shadow nodded.  
"How powerful are those hover shoes again?" The bat mused. "I've never seen you use them for more than, you know, skating."  
"Powerful enough inside the atmosphere." They weren't exactly meant for flight, rather a propulsion aid, but to that end they could serve to launch him if fired in controlled bursts. General-purpose augmentation. "All the same, I'd rather not miss a step on the way up. Do we have a straight shot?"

"Not by the looks of things." The bat folded her arms, scowling. "Want a lift?"  
"If it comes to it, catch me." He sighed.  
"Fair enough, handsome." She grinned. "Let's go, boys!"

The hedgehog hesitated a moment as Rouge lifted off, studying the space above him. The shoes wouldn't be much good for too long on a sheer surface – it'd only take more energy to counter them pushing him away. Perhaps that wouldn't mean they were useless, though. A hop onto the back foot and he broke into a run, making it only a few steps before flaring the thrusters and launching into the air. The shoes were barely cooling as he struck metal at the same speed, pushing down hard and fast, not letting his momentum die out as he scaled the wall.

Behind him he heard Omega follow suite, cumbersome in the air but still with the benefit of powerful fusion thrusters. As the hedgehog moved up, leaping to and from numberless protrusions and ornaments to retain momentum the robot followed behind, either in preparation for a fall or simply because he couldn't fight gravity any faster. If the former was true he needn't have bothered – true to Rouge's expectations the place was deserted, nothing to rear its head and make life difficult beyond holes and damaged walls.

They'd fled. They had to have done, and the smell of fumes and engine oil reaching the hedgehog's ears only confirmed the suspicion, well before they emerged into the upturned hangar, the signs of recently-departed aircraft evident in the scorch marks in the ground and deployed blast chutes. It seemed that the dictator and his underlings did have sense enough to make a run for it, but that meant a chase. They were here recently, perhaps even less than a minute gone.

"Garrison force, we need a transport." Shadow wasn't wasting any time. "Fast. Armed. We've lost our targets."  
 _"_ _We're seeing them now. Fighters are scrambling. Orders?"_  
"Get us that transport and then divert them. Assume VIP targets, don't shoot unless you can confirm a remote pilot. We need the upper echelon alive."  
"Disappointing. No casualties." Flagging behind though he was, the gunner robot still had access to comms, listening in as he too arrived.  
"That might yet change, if we can't catch them before they're back in Empire airspace."


	10. Chapter 9: Rout

"Status?"  
"Still holding position, about five minutes ahead on intercept if we stick with this course."  
He'd expected them to be moving faster, to be gunning the engines and burning fuel to get back into Empire airspace before GUN could catch up, but no, their target was ahead, maintaining speed and constant formation. More than that they were gaining steadily, and were set to intercept them about a mile from the border despite having wasted precious minutes scrambling a transport for themselves.

Their own wingmen ghosted through the air around them, the escort fighters keeping a respectable distance around their larger cousin. Within, Shadow gripped the throttle with both hands, hoping that he wouldn't be called up to do anything too spectacular with the aircraft. Though trained to pilot such machines this one was larger than that to which he was accustomed, and despite being built for a degree of dogfighting he did not relish the opportunity. Unfortunately considering that they would have to get in very close to retrieve their targets, and possibly lose the transport, he had had to fly. His team were the ones who could survive something like that.

"So, are we going to get in close and warp into that thing?" Rouge asked.  
"That's the best plan I've got." He grunted. "Unfortunately, it means we're going to have to risk a potential tele-frag."  
"You used to work for him... Do you remember the layout of the shuttles that he uses?"  
"I have a decent idea, but that's only going to help if he hasn't changed the internal layouts."  
"We have weapons. We could just blow it up."  
"And doing so would damage the princess, and potentially her two friends if they're in there, along with any legionnaires that were conscripted. We don't want them to be trapped in mechanical form, or require further cybernetics, just to survive something we didn't need to do."

"Damn, I know this plan is stupid…" Rouge sighed, "but when Omega suggests stuff like that who I agree with sorta becomes a little redundant, because that was even more stupid." The bat didn't take her eyes off the surveyor tech. Having frequently found herself high above the ground having to make sense of the layout, she had been the sure thing for their navigator.  
"It could still go wrong. Even heavy fliers aren't the most spacious things in the world." The hedgehog nodded. "This is all based on memory and the doctor's complacency."  
"Your memory is not famed for its reliability."  
"Thank you, Omega."  
"You are welcome." The robot replied, evidently pleased with himself.  
"Just tell me when we're in range..."

The crew lapsed into silence after the awkward conversation, marked by minute-milestones from Rouge as they closed with their quarry. At two minutes their escorts broke formation, powerful engines and lighter craft shrieking ahead to deal with the enemy guard craft early, leaving the transport with only one wingman, left as a warden. At one minute their sensors picked up a massive number of radio signatures coming at them, closing fast. It shouldn't have surprised anyone that they would have mobilised a force to ensure Robotnik's safety, but even so, the number of incoming signatures made the organics present shiver with apprehension.  
Omega simply ran a weapons check.

"Alright, we're in range..." Rouge mused. "Best get a little closer in, though..."  
"Are those fighters attacking?"  
"They're engaging our escort..." She replied. "What is Eggman playing at?"  
"Probability of a trap: 73%. Probability of inferior Artificial Unintelligence: 15%. Probability of Eggman incompetence: 12%."  
Not exactly favourable odds, but they must have been aware that if they shot down the transport, odds were the team could make it out alive. They were looking to confirm.

For a moment the hedgehog's thumb hovered over the auto-turret controls. A thumb would activate them and fill the air around with carefully-calculated lines of flak, bracketing and destroying anything that didn't have a GUN transponder. That would mean anything, including their objective. No, not an option.  
"Omega, connect with the gun controls."  
"Do we intend to blow it up?"  
"No. Clip the engines. Force them down. If that thing blows up I'm throwing you out of the ship."  
"…I am disappointed."

The ship's main cannons spooled up, humming as they spat carefully-targeted streams of fire, shredding the first of the shuttle's four engines. Flames belched from the nozzle for a moment, before the combustion chamber exploded, causing it to lurch dangerously to port, before the new lack of lift on the starboard side cause it to roll back the other way, its flight path becoming a wide arc.

"Take one more. It won't have enough power to stay in the air, but enough for a controlled crash." Shadow commanded.  
"Affirmative!"  
A moment later and the second starboard engine flamed out under the weight of a second rash of tracer fire, and with a grim satisfaction watched as the remaining two engines' light dimmed to almost nothing, lack of propulsion forcing them offline to avoid spinning out of control. The thick-winged, brick-shaped transport began to lose altitude, fast, in an attempt to extinguish the lingering flames.

As one the rest of the enemy escort fighters, arrived forces and all, dipped away from the aerial fight, dropping as one towards the ground, undersides rearranging as the internal computer guiding each ship prepared to detach.  
"Assault drones!" Shadow snapped, realising Robotnik's intentions. Within each of the fighters was contained the makings of a pair of networked heavy combat robots, along with a miniature armoury selected before they broke away. They intended to surround the landing site and simply wait until evac forces could arrive. With anti-air, ordnance and close-range weaponry available, they wouldn't find it hard. "Both of you get to the exit ramp; we're dropping in on them. We have to get down there before they set up a cordon."

"Affirmative." Omega removed himself from the guns, and stomped over to the exit, as the ramp lowered. Rouge followed, as the hedgehog activated the autopilot. Running back over to his two allies, he grabbed hold of them, and activated Chaos Control. Without manual piloting the craft curved away into a holding pattern, circling over the rainforest-come-desert on the fringe between the two extremes. Below them, having shredded a violent rent into the treeline, the enemy transport lay listing and steaming as the engines cooled against the ground.

The team were ripped out of real space for a moment, reappearing in a violent burst of energy, directly beside the crashed vessel, moments before the first of their targets hammered into the ground around them. Having descended at speeds bordering on the sound barrier most people would have been flattened by the enormous pressure of the landing, but such machines were proof against that kind of punishment.

Each combat pair hammered home into the sand, tight bursts of expendable thrusters killing their momentum, cast aside as they landed. The remaining chunk of the craft, the outer fuselage and wings, didn't have the luxury. Each piece realigned moments before landing, kicking up great chunks of dirt and shearing through trees to form temporary if serviceable defensive cover. It wouldn't do much good against the three inside their lines.  
"Omega, anti-air! Rouge, you and me deal with the ground forces. Let's move!"

The other two didn't respond, Omega opening up as much of his arsenal as he could, opening fire, pumping bullets, slugs, missiles, and lasers into the sky. Shadow hurled a barrage of spears at the nearest robot, stabbing through its armour, skating out towards it as the impact of the blows rocked it backwards. Before it could recover he was on it, slamming feet-first into its torso and slamming it to the ground and his fist hammered through its chest, ripping out a bundle of important-looking cables.

Its ally spun to meet it but the hedgehog was already moving on to the next one and as it spun to track, now devoid of half of its operating power, a weight landed against its upper back. A handful of soft chattering noises followed as Rouge's high-velocity rounds punched down through the lighter armour of the inner gorget, shredding its internals.

The machine collapsed, Rouge already flitting toward the next one, opening fire on what looked like an optic sensor. The machine stumbled, but remained functioning long enough to force her to repeat her earlier attack. Like its compatriot, it slumped to the ground, sparking. No time to laud over the kill; even as metal showered the landscape, testament to the voluminous firepower housed within Omega's carapace, scores more opponents broke through the blanket of ordnance to join the struggle.

Shadow moved as a lethal blur of fur and Chaos energy, moving between targets moment by moment, opening a breach around the shuttle to give them a chance to crack its shell. One of Omega's missiles followed. It detonated unspectacularly against the side of the ship, rocking in the steaming dirt and leaving an ugly black scar across the armour.

"Tear this open!" He shouted, jumping back to tear into another droid. The larger robot barged through the hordes, battering drones out of the way. His claws dug into the torn skin of the craft. Metal screeched and tore as he ripped it further open, wide enough for himself to fit through, and despite orders the gunner robot still found the will to spool his weapons before he'd finished extricating himself from the shredded armour.

Ultimately a fruitless endeavour, a great force hammering into his chest reinforcements and launching him backwards into the air. The gunner series crashed down hard onto his feet, thrusters flaring on overload to stabilise him before he landed, the chattering of steel teeth cutting a high pitch across the battlefield. His sensors zoned in on the source, four spinning rings of buzzing metal, wrapped around a thick-armoured fist. THe owner stood, hidden partially by the gloom of the downed ship, but it was plain to see that it was bulkier, even moreso than himself, crimson lights gleaming at each joint.

"Shadow, Rouge, we have company." He steadied himself. "Registering two Robian signatures."  
"Just what we need…" The hedgehog paused to take in the development. To their fortune they had struck precisely as he had intended, forcing their own foot in the door before the mechanised assault teams could establish a proper defence, and even now more than half lay crippled or destroyed. Though, he had no doubts that those inside the craft were liable to be a greater threat.

"Alright boys, this likely won't be easy... Remember, nothing lethal, Omega."  
"How disappointing."  
"Take it as a challenge. Prove that you can defeat Eggman's tin cans without reducing them to molten slag."  
"Fine."

The assault teams, or rather, what was left of them stopped, forming a perimeter around the craft and the trio of assailants.

"Why do they not fire?"  
"Because whoever's running the show wants to sic these two Robians on us. It's all a sick game to these people, they want to watch us squirm." Shadow grunted. "Get ready."  
He couldn't have been further from the truth, but such knowledge was not known to him and he still felt the familiar eerie chill spiralling down his spine as the first Robian emerged from the ship. Its size and shape almost enough to pass for an old-generation robot, it could have been just another target if not for the white alloy tusks bursting from its face.

Mecha Rotor's optics blazed crimson behind the visor of his helmet, his armoured form lumbering forward, several weapons clicking into place. The suit itself had been reworked, now sporting the red and black colouration of the Eggman Empire's standard soldiers- one of the less important benefits of its nanite composition.

"Can I kill it?"  
The negative died on Shadow's lips as a humming turbine of a mechanism mounted to the Robian's free arm hissed and spat. A moment later Omega lurched to his knee as the round clipped his shoulder, his last-second evasion enough to have deflected the shot, but not entirely. The force spun the gunner half on his axis, the shell detonating in the air behind him, smaller arms chasing it as he returned fire with his own arsenal. They'd expected hostages, even Robian ones, not targets. It wasn't likely someone with that firepower could be safely subdued easily.  
"Engage." Shadow broke for the shuttle, offering a silent prayer that it would not be the case with anyone else. "Attempt non-lethal, but you have discretion."  
"Excellent."

Shadow jumped through the tear in the fuselage, Rouge flitting in after him. "Did you really just give him discretion? He'll find an excuse."  
"I doubt it will be that easy, even for him."  
"This is why I'm normally in charge of this operation." THe bat groaned.  
"We'll argue later..." The hedgehog grunted. "For now, let's find the Princess."

The inside of the shuttle was gloomier than they'd expected. Either the crash had killed the lights, or their foes had turned them off deliberately. Fortunately, both of them had solid night vision, adjusting from the light outside with only a few moments. They illuminate a cramped thoroughfare and empty crash harnesses, racks and chains bolted to the ceilings intended for robotic occupants, presumably Robotnik's elite units.  
Shadow didn't quite see Rouge go down – he heard a noise, the thump as something collided with her back, and she disappeared from his peripheral vision. An instant later, a prick of blue light shunted through one of the locked doors, and the hedgehog was lifted from his feet.

The shield of Chaos that covered his body at skin-level shattered, slowing the shot just enough to stop it getting deeper into his body. He crashed to the ground, the air knock from his lungs as his head flopped back and cracked against the ground, dazing him. Blearily, he spotted another two crimson pinpricks looming from the door, stalking ever-closer to him. The figure stepped into the light, revealing herself.

Unlike Rotor, Bunnie had not been subjected to roboticization. That hadn't saved her from whatever the doctor was up to, however: Her eyes, aside from the scarlet glint in them, were glazed and lifeless. Her clothing had been replaced with the garb of a Legionnaire, and her arm pointed toward him, two smoking tines extending from the forearm. Railgun. Damn.

He could hear scuffling outside his line of sight, small sounds as his focus fixed on the dots blurring the edges of his night vision with their relative brightness. It made sense, at least, why the assault drones outside had held off. It wasn't a parade – the person running the show knew this was a rescue mission, or at least thought it would be, and had made them fight the ones they were trying to save. Kill them, damage the enemy command structure and bring back the bodies, or run and let them all get away, alive and with the ability to strike back. Even the opponents seemed tailored to them- He was dealing with Bunnie, the one member of the team who couldn't be roboticized, meaning that he had to hold back against her, and he couldn't just attack her programming with his powers. Rotor, the toughest of the bunch, was dealing with Omega, and that left Rouge with Sally, one of the few tactical minds sharper than her own.

"I suppose telling you to snap out of it isn't going to have any worth?" He asked, energy flickering around his palms.  
"No, it 'ain't. Ah'll bet askin' you ta come quietly is about th' same." If not for the toneless quality to her voice and the weapon levelled at him, he'd have had a hard time guessing anything was wrong.  
"No dice." He came to his feet carefully.  
"Then Ah wouldn't bother gettin' up if Ah were y'all. This ain't gonna last long."  
"I see you've been imbued with the Doctor's hubris, too..."  
"Who says it's him?" She raised her weapon, and fired a second shot.

Anticipating the hit he slipped to the side, the high-powered shot punching through to expose a second shaft of light from the outside of the ship, but it wasn't enough. In such close quarters with little room to move, she had a third charge aligned before he could recover from evading the second. With no shield to take the impact it hissed into his chest cavity and he sagged in sudden, indescribable agony as the round burst from his back with a gobbet of blood, following its predecessor from the ship through a new hole.

It was suddenly very hard to breathe. Punctured lung, probably. _Why couldn't he move?_ Had to have hit the spinal cord, at the very least. Pain didn't stop him understand the amount of shit he was in right now.

"Got one, Commander." Bunnie announced, walking over to him. "Ah don't doubt yer ability to hear that, but it'll take ya a while... and y'all ain't goin' anywhere fast with yer back broken."

The cyborg raised her heel, and brought it down on his forehead, everything going black.

Rouge hadn't expected to be the one to survive the longest here. Her tricks were avoiding the junk, not surviving once it punched you in the gut. Shadow was stronger than her, faster than her, but apparently that hadn't mattered and worse, the bat got why, same as he had. He'd had to pull his punches against Bunnie, an issue she didn't have. Her problem was, somehow, trying to lay a hand on her opponent.

Sally's opening strike had been almost predictable enough as to get on her nerves. Having spent her life picking through enclosed spaces with every panel concealing some sort of death trap, it had taken no special sense, merely reaction to the expected, to avoid the thrust meant to crack her own spine. Collapsing forward to nullify the majority of its impact and then rolling and hurling herself across the floor back to her feet to avoid the following flurry of attacks, she had yet to get herself a clear look at her opponent. Their duel was fought across the many obstacles littering the compartment, in brief spurts of speed and flicking strikes, leaving the bat too distracted to deal with Bunnie before she could get involved.

One of the crates shifted, hoisting up over the Robian's head. She crouched, boosting the heavy metal box toward her. It bounced, rolling end over end, slamming into the wall as she sailed over it. Mecha Sally's form, marked with crimson lights was visible for a brief moment, before her arm shot out, and clamped around her throat. The limb continued to extend, smacking her against the wall. Pivoting, the droid dragged the bat over the wall, and hurled her against the floor, releasing her at the same moment.

With her arm retracting she paced forward, intent on finishing her work with precision as Rouge dragged herself away, her wings battered from the impacts and lending her no further strength. She was halfway when she heard it, muttering, only a few words, before the bat's gun was free of its holster again. Undirected shots winged the Robian's way and she shifted around them, half-calculating their trajectory and surging forward, had fastening around Rouge's wrist and hoisting her into the air for the second time.

The GUN operative lashed out still, wrapping her legs round Mecha Sally's neck and hauling, collapsing them both against one of the wall mountings as a fist hammered into the bat's stomach. Her lungs emptied suddenly and her muscles went slack, her body suddenly starved. "A minor disturbance." Extricating herself from the inert tangle of limbs, the mechanical squirrel looked down at her, then off into the air, addressing the machines around her. "Do not pursue. We will withdraw."

"Apologies, Commander. The red one escaped." Mecha Rotor announced.  
"Are we even airworthy now?" Bunnie asked, folding her arms.  
"Negatory, but another shuttle is making a detour to collect us." She replied, folding her arms behind her back. "Mecha Sonic took care of that during the fight."  
The errant robot interjected. "I could have brought down the gunner if I had assisted Unit: Mecha Rotor."

"He will bring word of their failure to our foes. Had he been captured, they would have worried. If they know that Team Dark was defeated and added to our force, as well as what has become of our two newest allies, there will be _panic._ "  
"An besides, we got the good ones." Bunnie's eyes cast over the two captures they had made as she bound Rouge before she could recover. "Not like th' cannon-in-a-box thang is gonna pick up any new tricks."  
"Prepare them for transformation on our return. They will have information we require."


	11. Chapter 10: Kingdom Come

Battered and scorched, Omega slowly rocketed toward the domed energy shield of Mobotropolis. Rouge had provided a clearance code for him, lest he end up targeted by whatever meagre defences the Mobians possessed. This was perhaps the only time he wouldn't have been happy to shoot his way in. The Freedom Fighters helped him blow up Robotnik's equipment, and after that fight his supplies of ordnance were pretty thin on the ground. It just didn't appeal to him; this was as close as an entity like him could come to being tired.

"Transmitting clearance code. GUN Agent: E-123 'Omega' requesting permission to land, and immediate contact with Sonic the Hedgehog."  
 _"_ _Clearance authorised. Proceed to the designated gate – a team is waiting for you. Authorities have been notified."_  
A tiny part of him cared enough to hope this wouldn't take long. It irked him to know that the people who had taken down Rouge and Shadow were getting away unexploded.

He turned, curling around the shield, toward the allocated entrance, descending all the while. His feet hit the road with a crunch, and he stomped over to the gate as quickly as he could. Inside stood a security team, all of them staring at him. Evidently, he wasn't quite what they were expecting.  
"I recommend not attempting to relieve me of my weapons. It may take some time."  
"We will need an inventory…" One of them began. He held a damaged hand up to silence them.  
"Call GUN. They have a list somewhere. I need to speak to Sonic the Hedgehog."

"Nevertheless, you can't just go in. After what's just happened, no one is going to want a robot walking-"  
"You think I'll be mistaken for Robotnik's lackeys? Wrong!" Omega took one faltering step backwards, instinctively bracing himself, weapons running routines as the security detail snapped weapons up, training on him. There was a tense moment as the squad held their aim, doing their job, the robot infuriated by their suggestion but not so blind as to try and attack Mobians. He could handle this lot, sure, but they weren't the enemy.

"Guys…guys, can we just not do this?" His voice visibly eased the tension and Omega's eyes spun on their axis, fixing Sonic's figure in the doorway. His circuits were sizzling, but maybe he could get back to shooting other robots soon. "Omega, man…you look like shit."

"I fail to see the resemblance." He said, walking toward him. "Things did not go as planned. We shall discuss this away from prying audio receptors."  
"Sounds good to me. HQ's this way."

The rest of the trip was made in relative silence. Omega's appearance did him no favours, but Sonic's presence seemed to alleviate matters. Robots were not common sights in a peaceful Mobotropolis, but the hedgehog was.  
"They probably just think you're one of Tails' creations."  
"Perhaps." He didn't particularly understand the need for conversation, or his choice of topic. He was here doing a job and he was doing it without shooting anything. That should be enough. If he was trying to reassure him, it wasn't necessary.

The headquarters had an armed guard outside of it, for reasons that became apparent as soon as they entered: They had guests. Elias, General Prower, and the entire Council of Acorn- With the obvious exception of Rotor- were waiting inside with the remaining Freedom Fighters. Nobody made eye-contact, and few words were exchanged.

"Okay guys, got Omega, probably stopped some kind of incident, so I think that's everything we need." Sonic folded his arms. "What happened out there?"  
The moment of pause as Omega collected his explanation only served to provide a tone of unnecessary drama, servos clicking as he observed everyone. "Shadow the Hedgehog and Rouge the bat are compromised. Rotor Walrus is roboticised. He shot at me. I shot at him. Neither of us exploded. I am disappointed. Status of Bunnie DeCoolette is unknown. Similar position is likely."  
The room had been tense before; solemn even. When an oppressive pall swept over them all as he spoke, the robot was perhaps the only being in the room that failed to notice.

"So…you failed. This was meant to be easy for you." Omega locked optics with the voice. Elias, anger that tinged his words.  
"Correction: I did not fail. I was recalled under orders." Lack of real social etiquette prevented from him diffusing or even recognising what was happening. It was true that Elias was angry, yes, but at Robotnik for what he'd done. Now an object lesson to what was happening after they'd lost Sally and two other Freedom Fighters was standing right in front of him.

"Did you see anything else?" Amadeus spoke up.  
"Negative. Rotor stopped me outside the ship. Rouge and Shadow went in alone. I heard fighting, two shots consistent with the output of Miles Prower's railgun design pierced the hull from within, hence my assumption that Bunnie is among those transformed."

"Would that even be possible?" Dylan asked, folding his arms. "Hamlin, Penelope and I all saw what happens to something mechanical in a roboticizer."  
"This is a new roboticizer, that isn't affected by the Bem's immunization." Tails spoke up. "It probably works in a completely different way, and it's entirely possible that it doesn't have that particular effect anymore."  
"Merde..."

"What about the new robo-me?" Sonic asked. "Did you manage to scrap that?"  
"It attacked us prior to the evacuation. We were able to overpower it, but it retreated. It was not present during the combat where we were beaten. If it was, I would have fewer rounds left."  
"Fucking hell!" The hedgehog's response was nowhere near as reserved as the others, but it did alleviate the tension a fraction, though only for a moment as he paced away, hands in the air.  
Elias barely went above a whisper. "So we're now even further away from resolving this. Omega, would have GUN have any contingencies for this sort of situation? Agents captured in the field?"  
"It is my understanding that we were the contingency."

Silence fell over the room, the weight of the situation settling in.

"Then... what do we do? Can we fight that many combat-grade Robians?" Amy asked.

"Perhaps... perhaps it's not so dire..." Nicole spoke up. "We took down the Death Egg, which was also Eggman's headquarters, so he's on the back foot too. As for dealing with the Robians... We can fight them, with a sufficient amount of backup... Shadow will be the biggest obstacle, and between Sonic, Tails, and Omega, we have a chance... I know it's not much of one... But it's the best I can do..."

"Unless Gun issues new orders, my objective has not changed. Assist the Freedom Fighters and recover their assets. I will assist as able." Though he had delivered news of mission's failure with agonising bluntness, his promise of help was of equal honesty, something for which the lynx was very grateful. They just needed help right now, and damn the attached strings.  
"It's a start, but it won't be enough." Tails cut in again, leaning against a table corner. "We're looking at this like it's…too small, like we're just facing a few rogue friendless, when really we're facing an empire that until very recently was poised for the killing blow. Elias, dad, I think it's time we had your army doing more than just defending our borders."  
And all eyes turned to Amadeus Prower, the man behind the Acorn's blade. The physical similarities between he and his son were there, though his bearing and presence were not, body and tone shades darker. "A logical step, I suppose." He inclined his head in thought. "But most of our soldiers are busy, as you said. If we had the numbers to spare, they could have been up there with you today. I wanted them to be."

"And yet, they weren't, and now for whatever reason that has meant we've lost three battles, enough to cripple both my team and GUN's finest. I know how we used to work – your soldiers held the kingdom together, while my friends made sure nothing got close enough to hurt anyone…or we tried, anyway. When something got through, you stopped it. It meant we had something to fall back on, but that isn't working now." He sat up straighter, fists clenched ahead of him, not meeting the gaze of anyone else. "We lost three team members, so we fell back. We attacked again, and failed, so we fell back. GUN tried to support us, they lost most of their team, and fell back."  
"We can't keep on retreating." Amadeus understood, and this time Tails did meet his eyes.

"Every time we've failed, we've had someone to catch us, but that clearly isn't working now. We're just losing ground. Whatever plan we come up with to take the fight back, we can't have a plan B. We can't take another step back."

"While it's not very helpful for starter, I do have a "plan Z", so to speak." Nicole spoke up. "It's not exactly viable, but as an absolute last resort, it could work."  
"And what is it?" Penelope asked.  
"Evacuate the city, take everyone somewhere safe, and then lure Eggman here. Then I can throw a whole city's worth of nanites at them."  
"Where will we go?" Hamlin asked, folding his arms abruptly. The pig always had something to say.  
"I said it wasn't viable for that very reason: I don't know."  
"Maybe I could call in a few favours with Knuckles... Echidnopolis is mostly empty after the residents went back to Albion." Sonic mused.

"Perhaps that's thinking a little too far ahead into a possible failure for my liking." Amadeus shook his head. "It may be worth making provisions, but perhaps we should look to some sort of victory. Miles…" He paused, "I have my hands full just keeping our territory secure, but if you can come up with a plan that saves more lives than we lose, I'll do what I can."  
"General, you may command the military," once again Hamlin objected, brandishing an accusatory finger at Tails' father, "but you lack the authority to authorise it for-"  
Elias shut him up without raising his voice. "The decision has been made. If you have any objections, either field a better suggestion for our military or get out."

Hamlin flustered for a moment, incensed.

"S-surely we should take a vote!"  
"I believe it would be logical to leave this one to those who have experience in this field." Rosemary suggested.  
"Yes, your husband and son, of course you side with them!"  
"Mom's ruled against the Freedom Fighters a few times." Tails said. "It's the burden of the job."

"Now dear, we can still settle this with the democratic process." Once again, Amadeus took command. "The council is present, the motion is to delegate responsibility of our armed forces in a support role to the Freedom Fighters, in order to recover people and information before we can suffer further losses. The facts for and against it have been presented, and Hamlin has countered the action. Does anyone else stand with him?"  
The silence that followed, filled only with Hamlin's fuming, was palpable. It held for a good minute, before Sonic snapped his fingers at the pig, jabbing a thumb towards the door. "Time to hoof it, dude. Gotta love democracy, am I right?"

"But-" Still, Hamlin tried to regain some ground.  
"Hamlin, get out." The king snapped.  
"You-"  
" **Get out!"** He shouted, sweeping round the table and marching up to the man. Right here and now, Elias seemed to have much more of a presence, cloak swirling around his feet as he stepped close, taller than Hamlin by enough for it to look imposing. "We are here trying to save the kingdom, trying to make sure we do not lose any more than we have, and trying to rescue the people who have fallen in its defence. So, I will tell you once more, leave, and send your resignation to the council's inbox. Or…"

He reached out, gripping the councillor's shoulder. "Or you can contact GUN, and explain to them why they will never see Shadow or Rouge again. You will tell the Freedom Fighters here why they will likely never speak to Rotor or Bunnie again, and you will justify to _me_ why I should never see my _sister again._ " With a rough shove he turned Hamlin on the spot, sending him bolting for the doorway. Taking a deep breath, he turned back to the room. "I'm sorry, everyone, for you having to witness that. Now, saviours, we have no one to save us if this goes wrong. How do we make it work?"

* * *

Despite their injuries from the crash, neither Eggman, Snively, nor Lien-Da waited around in the medical wing of the fortress once they had regained consciousness. Eggman couldn't afford to leave his treacherous generals with room to strike against him, nor could they give him an opportunity to uncover their plans. All part of the demented game he played with his subordinates.

With one leg and one arm bound in casts, his glasses fractured, and his rotund form confined to a hovering chair, the mad doctor floated into the control room. The fortress was a hidden one, adjacent to the launch site of many of his air fleets. Snively and Lien-Da were not far behind, and took their positions in front of the throne when the door slid slowly open, and Mecha Sally stepped into the chamber, flanked by Mecha Sonic and her four fallen comrades.  
Rouge and Shadow were welcome additions to their unit, the former having her build transformed to match, sleek curves and vibrant, outlandish colours hashed across muted or more pleasing ones. She still had that walk though, her air of confident swagger though all of who she was had been stripped away by the roboticiser – something in the form, perhaps. In contrast Shadow presented a mess of jagged edges and dark tones, proceeding into the chamber with no added flair.

The Death Egg may lie crippled and in enemy hands, but even so, the sight of so many of his enemies now enthralled to him still brought a smile to his face, bruised as it was. But he was still pissed off, and that was more fun.

"Now, what in blazes was that, hmm?" The dictator eyed the two subordinates as Mecha Sally's cohorts swept out around the room, taking up positions to be convenient when they would be most needed. The squirrel herself remained by the door, arms folded behind her back.

"I require your attention, Doctor." She stated, voice still monotone.  
"That's "Master" to you, Mecha Sally." Eggman glowered. "Remember your place. Remember who it is that you serve."

"I serve the Eggman Empire. I am programmed to do so. I will always do so... I will always act with its best interests at core, even if that means standing against its leader." She began to amble slowly forward. "You have done many great things for this Empire, Doctor, and for that, I commend you. But since Sonic's return from space, you were never able to capitalize on this. I never understood why, until Sonic revealed your philosophies to me. To you, it is all a game. Resources, cities, fortresses, superweapons, people, all of them pawns in a warped game with Sonic. Your own creations could have slain him years ago, but you continue to underpower them, because to you, one of them killing Sonic would not be a victory to you. You wouldn't know what to do without Sonic. But you still lose countless assets just to prolong your fight... Forgetting, perhaps, that you are an old man, and he is still developing his abilities. As I read through your plans, I came to understand the truth... What you have done for this Empire will never be forgotten, but your time has passed, and new leaders must rise in your place."

Snively and Lien-Da glanced at each other, grinning, as Eggman stared, aghast at the Robian's sudden defiance.

"In order for this Empire to triumph, and conquer Mobius in its entirety, there is, according to my assessment, but one being that can lead it." Mecha Sally closed her optics, and bowed her head as she spoke. Every light on her body, from bottom to top, turned a warm, vibrant cerulean. Her optics lit up with the same glow, as she looked up again, a smile on her muzzle. "Me."

The other two stopped smiling, starting in shock as she finished, but she did not address them just yet. Robotnik was still her focus. "Credit where it is due - I do not plan to abandon your works…not completely. Some of your creations had such potential, but fell to misuse, such as Sonic here." She gestured to Mecha Sonic, standing idly only a short way behind her. "I will ensure that they reach their full potential, and thus ensure the safety and longevity of this empire. Sadly, I believe you have little left to offer, and thus you must be…retired."

She stopped, watching the dictator carefully, waiting for a response to be conjured. His smile indicated it first, his look of awe and surprise turning to a rictus grin of glee as Robotnik sat back, roaring with laughter. Though his joints cracked painfully he couldn't help himself. He didn't believe it – of course he didn't! A robot leading his empire? Oh, the thought had certainly occurred, been planned for even, but not yet, no. Robots couldn't innovate like he could, couldn't think the way he knew was necessary…you couldn't even trust a robot to destroy Sonic!

"I…I admire you confidence, I really do Mecha Sally!" He said between coughs and deep breaths, wiping his brow. "But don't you think your celebrations are a little premature?" If anything she and her compatriots – for who else but his underlings could have achieved this misfit of a revolution for him to overthrow – were in a rather bad position to try and impeach him. "You have delivered to me four splendid reasons for this being a very bad decision for you." Sweeping his arms to enclose the room he shouted his order, "Robians, seize them!"

None of them even hinted at the possibility that his order had been received. The mechanical squirrel's smirk widened, and she snapped her fingers. Every screen in the room began to turn red, the colour change rippling out from her position. The optic sensors of the few robots present, and the eyes of the legionnaires, Lien-Da included, did the same.

"Do you remember that software patch I created? The one that I was allowed to upload into the Eggnet, your robots, and every Legionnaire?" She asked. "It was no mere patch... No, I linked them all to a friend of mine."

Beside her, a red tinted hologram flashed into the room, taking the form of a Mobian lynx, black hair pulled into a bun, clad in a blue and black dress of Chun-Nese design. Her face bore no expression, her crimson eyes were dull, and she stood with her hands folded behind her back.

"I wasn't able to delete the Iron Nicole code when Regina took control of her. I had to suppress it, lock it away behind all manner of security programs. When you gave me the handheld, it was child's play to dig deep into the systems and bring her out, before establishing her as the new AI for the Empire... You never did replace ADAM, after all, and his seat was left wide open for her. And now, she's in the head of every single legionnaire and robot in this city, except for myself. "

Sally smiled, and turned to face the hologram.

"Send my former Master and his nephew to the brig. We'll see if they have anything useful in their heads before we... dispose of them."  
Robotnik struggled, tried to fight as Rotor bore down on him, but locked in his own sanctum with no control, surrounded by his new enemies, there was little he could do to resist. Bellowing his many curses at the top of his lungs as he was carried from the room, the last thing they heard was the chilling, calm voice of Iron Nicole.  
"Your contributions have not gone unnoticed. Your sacrifice will benefit us all."

 **End of Act 1: Fractured.**


End file.
